BL  263  .K5  1913 
Kimball,  John  C.  b.  1832. 
The  romance  of  evolution, 
and  its  relation  to 


CO 1    !     1925 

THE  ROMANCE  OR^^ 
EVOLUTION 


AND  ITS  RELATION 
TO  RELIGION 


BY 
JOHN  C.  KIMBALL 


BOSTON 

AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION 

1913 


Copyright,   1913 
AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION 


PREFACE 

The  writer  of  these  essays  was  a  vigorous 
thinker  and  a  man  of  conspicuous  gifts  of 
public  speech.  Through  his  love  for  natural 
beauty  he  was  early  led  into  scientific  research 
and  he  made  himself  one  of  the  most  convincing 
of  the  interpreters  of  the  philosophy  of  evolu- 
tion. He  combined  a  scientific  habit  of  mind 
with  a  deep  interest  in  spiritual  realities.  He 
was  independent  in  judgment,  sincere  in  utter- 
ance and  vivid  and  picturesque  in  his  capacity 
to  translate  truth  into  terms  of  life. 

John  C.  Kimball  was  born  at  Ipswich,  Mass., 
on  the  23d  of  May,  1832.  He  graduated  at 
Amherst  College  in  1854  and  after  teaching  for 
several  years  entered  the  Harvard  Divinity 
School  where  he  graduated  in  1859.  From 
I860  to  1871  he  was  the  minister  of  the  First 
Parish  Church  in  Beverly,  Mass.,  though  dur- 
ing two  of  these  years  he  served  as  chaplain  of 
the  Eighth  Massachusetts  Volunteers.  For 
two  years  he  did  effective  pioneer  work  on  the 
Northwest  coast,  and  then  returned  to  New 
England   to   hold  pastorates   of  five  years   at 


IV 


PREFACE 


Newport,  R.  I.,  ten  years  at  Hartford,  Conn., 
and  four  years  at  Sharon,  Mass.  In  1904  he 
built  a  house  at  Greenfield,  Mass.,  where  he 
made  his  home  with  his  daughter  and  her  fam- 
ily until  his  death  on  February  16,  1910. 

Mr.  Kimball  was  a  man  of  a  wide  range  of 
reading,  thorough,  exact  and  untiring.  He 
was  sometimes  truer  to  his  convictions  than  to 
his  convenience  and  preferred  the  approval  of 
his  own  conscience  to  the  applause  of  the  multi- 
tude. He  was  accustomed  to  speak  his  mind 
with  great  freedom  not  only  upon  the  philo- 
sophical and  religious  beliefs  which  he  cher- 
ished, but  also  upon  the  vexing  social  problems 
of  his  generation.  He  was  upright  and  down- 
right, courageous  and  persistent.  He  was  also 
remarkably  productive,  for  in  spite  of  his  busy 
life  of  study  and  of  pastoral  service  he  wrote 
unceasingly  upon  the  subjects  and  in  behalf  of 
the  causes  which  enlisted  his  enthusiasm.  A 
graphic  article  of  his  appeared  in  the  Spring- 
field Republican  on  the  day  before  his  death, 
and  another  in  the  Christian  Register  on  the 
day  after  his  death. 

Many  of  the  essays  in  this  book  were  pre- 
pared for  delivery  as  lectures  before  the  Brook- 
lyn Ethical  Society  and  were  also  delivered  at 
the  Meadville  Theological  School  and  before 
various  clubs  and  scientific  societies  in  different 


PREFACE  v 

parts  of  the  country.  Several  of  them  were 
also  probably  used  as  sermons  or  may  have 
grown  out  of  sermons.  They  are  remarkable 
for  their  combination  of  dramatic  language 
with  scientific  accuracy,  and  for  a  certain 
pungency  and  persuasiveness  of  style  which 
makes  them  real  and  lasting  contributions  to 
the  literature  which  deals  with  the  contacts  of 
science  and  religion. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  pAQE 

I  The  Romance  of  Scientific  Discovery   .      .  1 

II  What  Evolution  Is 29 

III  The  Three  Great  Stages  of  Evolution  .      .  46 

IV  The   Proofs  of  Organic  Evolution    ...  64 
V  Evidence  of  Inorganic  Evolution     ...  84 

VI  The  Evolution  of  Life 103 

VII  The  Evolution  of  Love 118 

VIII  The  Evolution  of  Society 136 

IX  The  World's  Coming  Better  Social  State  .   158 

X  How  Evolution  is  Related  to  Religion     .   191 

XI  Does  Evolution  Necessitate  a  First  Cause?  200 

XII     What  Becomes  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God 

Under  Evolution? 228 

XIII  A  Spirit  World  as  the  Necessary  Outcome 

of  This  World's  Evolution 255 

XIV  The  Warrant  for  Prayer  Under  Evolution  287 

XV    The  New  Meaning  and  Position  of  Work 

Under  Evolution 310 


THE 
ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENTIFIC 
DISCOVERY 

Poetry  and  physics,  chivalry  and  chemistry, 
what  concord  could  they  have  with  each  other? 
The  minstrel's  song  and  the  laws  of  mathe- 
matics, how  can  a  man  serve  them  both?  What 
possible  sympathy  can  there  be  between  the  old 
world  of  fancy  peopled  with  gods  and  fairies 
and  full  of  mystery,  and  the  new  world  of 
science  inhabited,  two-fifths,  by  Brown,  Smith 
and  Robinson,  laid  off  in  lots,  lighted  with  gas 
and  run  through  with  railroads  ? 

The  first  effect  of  scientific  discovery  was 
beyond  question  the  destruction  and  dissipation 
of  a  great  deal  that  was  peculiar  and  beauti- 
ful in  the  old  realms  of  poetry  and  romance. 
The  elements  lost  their  personality  amid  the 
fumes  of  the  chemist's  retort.  Naiads  and  dry- 
ads fled  away  from  the  streams  and  the  woods. 
1 


2      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

The  completed  belt  around  the  globe  of  geo- 
graphical discovery  left  no  room  on  its  sur- 
face for  Spencer's  gorgeous  Faerie  Land.  A 
hard,  prosaic  earth,  destitute  of  all  that  could 
charm  the  fancy  or  feed  the  taste,  was  the 
early  morning  scene  of  the  scientific  day;  and 
it  is  no  wonder  that  under  its  influence  phi- 
losophy and  life  became  for  awhile  unromantic 
and  material  and  that  the  soul  should  some- 
times cry  out  for  the  warmth  and  grace  of  the 
old  imaginations. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  even  now  there 
are  some  aspects  and  associations  of  science 
in  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  much  that  is  pre- 
eminently romantic.  The  enthusiasm  of  the 
medical  student  inviting  his  lady-love  to  an 
elegant  dissection  will  not  compare  artistically 
with  that  of  the  olden  knight  asking  her  to  the 
cutting  and  slashing  of  a  tournament.  The 
chemical  and  physiological  view  of  Amelia  her- 
self as  composed  of  four  simple  elements, 
oxygen,  hydrogen,  carbon  and  nitrogen,  mixed 
up  with  a  few  earths  and  salts,  and  arranged 
in  two  hundred  and  forty  bones,  seven  hundred 
muscles  and  a  variable  amount  of  nerves  and 
adipose  tissue  is  beyond  question  less  adapted 
to  lyrical  expression  than  the  old  conception 
of  her  as  all  purity  and  sweetness,  warmed  with 
love  and  set  forth  in  lily  cheeks  and  raven  hair. 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE         3 

The  teaching  that  poetry  itself  and  all 
thought  depend  for  their  excellence  on  the 
amount  of  phosphorus  secreted  in  the  brain, 
and  that  the  best  way  to  get  them  is  to  eat 
plenty  of  eggs,  cheese  and  fish,  contrasts  very 
badly  from  the  romantic  point  of  view  with  the 
classic  image  of  the  bard  feeding  on  dew  and 
dreams  and  pouring  out  verses  from  the  crea- 
tive impulse  of  his  own  soul.  The  elective 
affinities  of  acids  and  alkalies  cannot  be  wrought 
into  novels  and  poems  by  any  known  process 
of  the  art  so  effectively  as  the  affinities  of  loving 
hearts.  Then,  too,  the  scientific  way  of  select- 
ing a  wife  and  falling  in  love,  going  first  to  a 
phrenologist  and  getting  a  chart  of  her  skull 
with  all  its  bumps,  combativeness,  destructive- 
ness  and  the  like  marked  upon  it,  then  to  the 
physiologist  to  find  out  whether  her  tempera- 
ment is  bilious  or  phlegmatic,  then  to  the 
family  physician  to  make  sure  she  is  free  from 
scrofula  and  consumption  and  then  to  the 
woman  herself  to  exchange,  not  vows  but  charts 
and  certificates,  is  not  certainly  on  the  face  of 
it  quite  so  romantic  as  where  Arthur  and 
Amelia  fall  in  love  with  each  other  at  first  sight, 
and  after  the  requisite  number  of  haunted 
castles,  diabolic  rivals  and  cruel  partings  rush 
exactly  at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  ecstatic 
into  each  other's  arms. 


4      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

This  destructive  and  prosaic  side  of  science, 
however,  is  only  its  beginning,  only  the  clearing 
away  of  the  old  rubbish  to  lay  the  foundation 
of  a  nobler  and  fairer  structure.  Its  first 
object  is  indeed  truth,  truth  whatever  the  ugli- 
ness and  humility  of  its  outlines  may  be.  But 
truth  and  beauty  in  their  final  result  are  always 
sure  to  blend  together  and  always  nourish  and 
require  in  those  who  follow  them  to  the  end 
something  at  least  of  their  own  grand  and  he- 
roic qualities.  Truth  here,  the  same  as  else- 
where, is  found  to  be  stranger  than  fiction,  the 
world  effect,  however  prosaic  its  surface  may 
be,  to  have  roots  which  go  down  to  infinite 
depths  of  mystery.  And  scientific  discovery 
dealing  with  these  truths  and  facts  has  come 
already  to  a  revelation,  lit  up  the  world  too  with 
a  light,  that  for  romance  and  wonder  surpasses 
all  that  was  ever  seen  or  dreamed  of  in  the 
grandest  days  of  old. 

Look,  first,  at  the  new  realms  it  has  opened 
before  the  astonished  eye  to  be  traveled 
through  and  explored.  It  would  seem  to  the 
superficial  glance  as  if  the  opportunity  was 
about  exhausted  for  the  adventurer  to  go  forth 
into  regions  strange  and  pastures  new.  The 
outside  of  the  planet  has  been  fully  traveled 
over  and  explored.  No  Nina,  Pinta  and  Santa 
Maria   can   sail   forth   to-day   for  new  worlds 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE         5 

over    untraversed    seas;    no    Robinson    Crusoe 
come  to  isles  rising  out  of  the  deep  that  the  foot 
of  civilized  man  never  has  pressed ;  no  new  Hud- 
son and  Joliet  and  De  Soto  hope  to  find  mighty 
rivers,  lakes  and  bays  all  fresh  to  bear  their 
names.     And  as  we  look  over  the  map  and  see 
everything   plain    and    clear,    every   nook    and 
cape  from  the  jungles   of  India  to  the  wolfs 
long  howl  on  Oonalaska's  shore,  we  can  but  wish 
for  new  worlds  to  explore,  wish  we  could  stand 
again  with  the  world-seeking  Genoese  as  he  set 
sail  the  first  time  for  the  wonderful  West,  climb 
with  Balboa  the  steeps  of  Darien  for  the  first 
glimpse    of   the   mighty   undreamed-of   Pacific, 
follow  Cook  with  only  the  through  ticket  of  his 
own   pluck   in   putting   the   girdle   of  a   ship's 
wake    around    the   mysterious    globe    and   float 
with   some   new  Joliet   and  La   Salle  down  the 
Mississippi's   ever   ebbing   tide, — wish   that   we 
had   some   fresh   food  for  that  hunger  of  ad- 
venture which  gnaws  forever  in  the  human  soul. 
It  is  this  very  thing,  however,  that  is  being 
done  for  us  on  the  grandest  scale  by  natural 
science.     This   outer  earth  that  was   explored 
by   voyagers    and    travelers    of   two    centuries 
ago  is  only  the  binding  and  outer  leaf  of  a  vast 
volume  thousands  of  pages  thick  and  reaching 
back  through  myriads  of  years,  every  one  of 
which  is  a  realm  with  oceans  and  continents  and 


6     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

a  flora  and  fauna  of  its  own  waiting  to  be  ex- 
plored. Mighty  streams  of  electricity,  mag- 
netism and  light  are  flowing  around  us  whose 
sources  are  as  much  a  mystery  as  those  of 
Egypt's  great  enigma  for  3000  years,  and 
with  a  tide  that  will  take  the  voyager  through 
realms  that  surpass  in  novelty  anything  which 
ever  lay  on  the  banks  of  the  Amazon  and  Miss- 
issippi. The  tiniest  drop  of  water  is  shown 
under  the  microscope  to  be  a  globe  crowded 
with  strange  forms  of  life,  and,  most  likely, 
with  its  own  capes  and  islands  which  no  Ma- 
gellan has  yet  circumnavigated  or  more  than 
begun  to  explore.  Marco  Polo  starting  out 
on  his  travels  through  the  strange  countries 
and  peoples  of  Asia  had  nothing  before  him 
which  could  rival  what  awaits  the  learner  of 
natural  history  to-day  in  every  grove  and  sod 
and  fallen  tree.  What  isles  of  fronded  palm 
rising  out  of  southern  seas,  what  plumage  of 
tropic  birds  and  mysteries  of  leaf  and  flower 
unfolded  to  the  first  travelers  in  Yucatan  and 
Brazil,  what  novelties  of  custom,  dress  and  lan- 
guage in  Abyssinia  and  far  Timbuctoo  and  up 
the  Indus  and  the  Nile  can  surpass  the  combi- 
nations of  that  magic  realm  which  opens  upon 
us  with  ever  more  and  more  of  wonder  in  the 
chemist's  laboratory !  And  looking  above,  what 
is  the  whole  earth,  all  its  continents  and  isles 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE         7 

and  mountain  peaks  and  glittering  seas  in  com- 
parison with  those  archipelagoes  of  light  and 
piled-up  shores  of  worlds  which  await  the 
voyager  across  the  ocean  depths  of  space.  It 
is  said  of  a  celebrated  Hellenic  scholar  who 
spent  his  whole  life  in  writing  a  treatise  on  the 
declension  of  the  Greek  noun  that  he  regretted 
on  his  death-bed  that  he  had  tried  in  his  studies 
to  cover  so  much  ground,  remarking  that  if  he 
should  live  his  life  over  again,  he  should  confine 
it  wholly  to  the  dative  case.  So  with  the 
realms  of  science.  The  fields,  instead  of  being 
exhausted,  are  found  continually  to  be  but  the 
doors  into  yet  wider  domains.  We  live  still  on 
the  border-land  of  vast,  mysterious  worlds. 
Strange  woods  and  fruits  and  bits  of  carving 
are  drifting  to  our  feet  to-day  from  over  the 
great  sea  of  the  unknown  as  they  did  to  those 
of  Columbus  four  centuries  ago.  Unseen 
barks  fanned  with  the  breath  of  mind  are 
fitting  out  from  a  thousand  little  ports  again 
to  plow  untraversed  depths  for  other  realms  on 
the  great  globe  of  truth.  New  Balboas  climb 
mountain  chains  still  to  behold  vast  Pacifies 
stretching  farther  on.  Reports  come  to  us 
every  year  of  capes  doubled  in  some  far-off 
realm  the  human  mind  for  ages  had  struggled 
with  in  vain.  And  as  the  first  intimation  which 
its  discoverers  had  of  America  with  all  its  vast- 


8      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

ness  and  wonder  was  a  faint  light  glimmering 
out  of  the  night  shadows,  so  with  each  year's 
progress  there  sparkles  some  gleam  of  truth 
out  of  the  darkness  beyond,  which  is  found  ever 
and  ever  to  be  the  herald  of  a  new  untrodden 
world. 

Look,  too,  at  the  qualities  of  mind  and  char- 
acter which  are  employed  in  carrying  on  this 
wonderful  work.  The  stock  picture  of  the  nat- 
ural philosopher  as  an  ugly,  dried-up  old  man 
gazing  bewildered  at  the  stars  or  stooping  use- 
less over  a  few  withered  leaves,  and  with  no  heart 
or  imagination,  nothing  but  the  cold  dry  light 
of  intellect,  is  the  very  opposite  of  what  is  true. 
Nearly  all  great  discoveries  have  been  made  in 
the  fire  and  freshness  of  youth  or  in  the  rich- 
ness and  strength  of  maturity.  Newton  was 
but  twenty-five  years  old  when  the  idea  of 
gravity  as  the  power  which  held  the  planets  in 
their  orbits  first  began  to  draw  him  into  its 
great  circle  of  truth.  Laplace  at  the  age  of 
twenty-four  had  already  won  his  place  in  the 
French  Academy  of  Sciences.  Leverrier's  great 
discovery  of  Neptune,  nothing  less  than  giving 
to  astronomy  a  new  world,  shed  its  luster  on 
him  at  the  age  of  thirty-five.  Kepler  at 
twenty-three  had  already  begun  that  canvass- 
ing of  the  stars  which  made  him  at  last  the 
legislator   of  the   skies;   and  Galileo  was   only 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE         9 

eighteen  when  he  won  his  first  laurels  in  that 
campaign,  the  brightest  Italy  ever  saw,  which 
ended  with  the  conquest  of  half  a  dozen  new 
kingdoms  to  the  empire  of  truth. 

The  picking  up  of  dry,  dead  facts  is  only  the 
beginning   of   their   work.      Enthusiasm,   love, 
gallantry,    courage,    imagination,    not    a    few 
of  the  finest  qualities  which  go  to  make  up  a 
manly    and    heroic    character    are   brought    to 
bear  in  carrying  it  on.     No  Red  Cross  knight 
in    Spencer's    Faerie    Realm    loving    the    holy 
Una,  no  army  of  Crusaders  under  Godfrey  de 
Bouillon  or  Richard   the  Lionhearted,  launch- 
ing themselves  out  to  rescue  the  Holy  City  from 
the  hands   of  the  Infidel,  ever  exhibited  more 
heroism  and  devotion  than  those  with  which  the 
picked  army  of  scientific  discoverers,  age  after 
age,  have  gone  forth  to  the  service  of  truth. 
They,  too,  have  had  their  Holy  City  to  be  re- 
deemed from  the  hands  of  ignorance  and  super- 
stition.     Out    into    unknown    realms    through 
toil,   difficulty,    want   and   darkness   they   have 
forced    their    way,    past    bodies    of   fact    con- 
scripted   from    every    land;    huge    columns    of 
figures  trained  with  more  than  a  soldier's  skill, 
have  been  marshaled  by  them  around  its  walls. 
Strange  weapons  out  of  the  chemist's  labora- 
tory, vast   batteries   of  the   far-reaching  tele- 
scope,   all    the    subtle    enginery    of    the    cal- 


10     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

cuius   and   the  higher  mathematics,   have  bat- 
tered against  its  defenses.     And  then,  perhaps, 
as  it  still  held  out,  the  scientific  imagination, 
daring    and    dashing    as    the    most    romantic 
knight    of    chivalry's    golden    age,    has    sallied 
forth  in  some  brilliant  charge  up  to  the  gates 
and  over  all  barriers,  and  been  the  first  to  raise 
the  shout  of  victory.     No  workman  who  was  a 
mere  dry  formalist  and  nothing  else  has  ever 
succeeded.     It  is  the  same  genius  dealing  with 
everlasting  harmonies  that  in  the  one  case  has 
given  us  the  philosophy  of  creation  and  in  the 
other   its    song.     The    discovery   of   the    solar 
system  was  as  true  a  poem  as  any  that  was  ever 
put  in  verse.     The  imagination  of  Newton  was 
what  first  leaped  forward  and  seized  the  great 
law  of  gravitation,  his  figures  and  facts  only 
coming  up  afterwards  to  support  the  position 
already  taken.      Copernicus,  Leibnitz,  Newton, 
Herschel,    Franklin,    Kepler,    even    old    Galileo 
himself  in  spite  of  his  single  act  of  weakness, 
were  not  only  first-class  philosophers,  but  first- 
class  men.     They  wrought  not  for  wealth,  not 
for    applause,    not    for   any    mean    and    selfish 
motive,  but  for  truth,  for  stars  of  honor  that 
sparkled  only  in  some  far-off  skies,  for  kingdoms 
to  rule  in  which  only  the  mighty  forces  of  na- 
ture were  their  subjects,  for  treasures  to  lay  up 
which  had  no  prices  quoted  in  any  markets  of 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       11 

earth.  Their  love  was  truth.  And  when  her 
bright  form  was  won,  how  often  with  great 
strong  hearts  and  all  knights'  chivalry  and  un- 
flinching faith  behind  the  sharp  edge  of  intellect, 
have  they  stood  up  for  her  against  the  neglect 
and  scorn  of  the  world.  "The  book  is  written," 
said  the  enthusiastic  Kepler  when  he  had  com- 
pleted the  great  work  which  made  him  legislator 
of  the  skies,  "to  be  read  either  now  or  by  pos- 
terity, I  care  not  which,  it  being  willable  to 
wait  a  century  for  a  reader  as  God  has  waited 
2000  years  for  an  observer." 

Nor  is  the  vindication  of  this  faith  and  the 
way  in  which  science  has  come  up  from  its 
humble  birth  and  won  the  homage  of  the  Church 
and  the  world  the  least  thing  in  its  romance. 
No  boy  starting  out  of  his  cottage  home  in 
life's  bright  morning,  friendless  and  alone,  his 
whole  capital  the  brave  heart  in  his  breast  and 
the  little  bundle  of  clothes  at  his  back,  to  win 
a  place  in  the  world  ever  began  lower  down  or 
went  through  a  series  of  more  trying  adven- 
tures. Philosophy  out  of  its  empyrean  heights 
looked  down  on  its  plodding  methods  with  con- 
tempt. If  there  was  one  thing  which  war  and 
trade  and  the  world  at  large  regarded  as  more 
impracticable  and  of  less  value  to  themselves 
than  another,  it  was  its  truths  and  speculations. 
And   religion, — Roger   Bacon   languishing   for 


12     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

ten  years  in  a  Franciscan  prison  as  the  penalty 
of  his  meddling  with  retorts  and  gases ;  Kepler 
obliged  to  turn  aside  right  in  the  midst  of  his 
most  brilliant  discoveries  and  spend  five  years 
in  defending  his  old  mother  from  the  charge  of 
witchcraft ;  Copernicus  hesitating  to  reveal  the 
truth  of  the  material  heavens  for  fear  of  losing 
his  place  in  the  New  Jerusalem;  Galileo  work- 
ing out  the  shining  problems  of  astronomy  on 
the  walls  of  the  Inquisition ;  these  are  types  of 
the  position  it  occupied  age  after  age.  The 
demonstrations  of  geometry  were  confuted 
with  a  bull  of  the  pope ;  little  bits  of  Scripture 
brought  to  bear  against  the  most  established 
facts  of  nature ;  the  earth  made  to  stand  still  by 
putting  in  prison  the  man  who  said  it  moved, 
and  each  new  discovery  of  reason  confronted  as 
an  answer  with  all  the  antiquity  of  faith.  Yet 
against  these  obstacles  the  young  stripling  step 
by  step  has  won  his  shining  way  to  the  fore- 
most places  in  the  realms  of  truth  and  power, 
his  path  marked  not  more  by  the  brilliancy  of 
his  own  discoveries  than  by  the  thousand  errors 
and  superstitions  he  has  split  open  and  battered 
down  among  his  foes.  There  never  was  another 
career,  even  on  the  pages  of  the  novelist  and 
poet,  that  was  more  romantically  successful  or 
such  a  testimony  to  the  force  and  skill  of  simple 
truth,  never   one  that  on  the  whole  has  been 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE        13 

more  nobly  or  modestly  used.  What  if  he  is  a 
little  overbearing  sometimes  to  his  old  antago- 
nist the  church,  or  rather  to  the  old  spirit  of  ec- 
clesiasticism  and  priestcraft  and  likes  to  give  it 
now  and  then  a  sharp  thrust?  It  is  only  poetic 
justice.  A  few  years  ago  an  eccentric  amateur 
of  science  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  was  terribly  an- 
noyed by  urchins  who  came  and  rang  his  door- 
bell at  all  times  of  the  day  and  night,  making 
their  escape  before  ever  he  could  get  to  the 
door.  He  bore  it  patiently  awhile;  but  at  last 
attached  the  bell-wire  to  a  powerful  electric 
battery,  and  with  a  smile,  calmly  awaited  the 
result.  It  was  not  long  before  a  band  of 
urchins  silent  and  sly  crept  up  to  give  it 
another  pull ;  and  not  long  again  before  there 
was  a  terrible  outcry  of  pain  from  an  amazed 
pair  of  lips,  and  a  very  hasty  exit  of  the  whole 
band  with  their  feelings  woefully  shocked.  So 
with  the  priests  that  age  after  age  have  gone 
to  the  house  where  science  lives,  calling  it  up 
day  and  night  on  all  sorts  of  frivolous  charges 
and  often  dragging  it  away  to  dungeon-cells 
and  midnight  tribunals, —  it  is  not  an  un- 
pleasant thing  to  see  that  now  there  is  a  power- 
ful battery  attached  to  the  door-handle  and  that 
every  time  they  go  near  it,  they,  too,  come 
away  terribly  shocked. 

But  if  not  in  religion,  yet  surely  in  every- 


14     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

thing  else  science  has  proved  itself  the  advocate 
and  friend  of  what  is  noblest  and  best  in  human 
progress ;  has  come  back  in  its  manhood  to  the 
old  neighborhood  from  which  as  a  boy  it  went 
in  such  poverty  and  disgrace,  as  the  large- 
hearted  and  munificent  benefactor.  Specula- 
tive philosophy  is  proud  to  own  it  brother. 
Every  vessel  that  crosses  the  seas,  every  art 
and  industry,  every  sphere  of  our  common  life, 
is  enriched  by  its  bounties.  No  god  of  the  old 
Olympic  knights,  going  down  to  mingle  in  the 
wars  of  men,  ever  carried  such  a  tremendous 
presage  of  victory  with  him  as  the  side  to  which 
it  now  goes  in  battle.  And  when  the  old  spirit 
of  personal  heroism  and  the  new  one  of  science 
are  combined  as  they  were  in  that  grandest 
product  of  our  civil  war,  the  noble  old  Far^- 
ragut,  it  is  hard  telling  which  shows  to  the 
most  advantage,  the  one  as  the  hero  of  Mobile 
Bay  lashed  to  the  mast  of  the  Hartford  damn- 
ing the  torpedoes  and  taking  his  flagship  into 
the  very  hell  of  the  fight,  or  the  other  as  the 
same  hero  at  New  Orleans,  ranging  his  fleet 
two  and  three  miles  away,  and  amid  all  the 
excitement  of  a  battle  dropping  a  shell  with 
the  accuracy  of  a  clock  every  thirty  seconds 
for  six  days  into  the  heart  of  the  beleaguered 
forts, — only  this  being  certain,  that  nothing  on 
this    earth   can    stand   them   both,   nothing  be 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       15 

found  in  the  famous  wars  of  old  that  can  equal 
for   romantic  valor  these   battles   fought   with 
manhood's  heart  of  fire  in  science'  ribs  of  steel. 
Look,  too,  at  some  of  the  special  incidents  in 
this  brilliant  career.     The  smallest  events  open 
up  with  dramatic  ingenuity  into  the  grandest 
fields    of    action.     Vast   Amazons    and   Missis- 
sippis  of  truth  out  of  springs  far  back  in  the 
mountains  that  a  pebble  might  have  stopped. 
How  like   another   story   of  the   oriental  genii 
rising  out  of  their  casket  up  to  the  very  heavens 
is  the  record  of  galvanism  with  the  telegraph 
and  all  its  vast  stretch  of  wonders,  originating 
from   the  twitching  of  a   frog's   leg  hung  up 
accidentally  with  a  copper  hook  on  an  iron  nail, 
and  that  the  telescope  which  has  been  to  science 
as  another  eye  out  of  which  it  has  looked  how 
far  and  discovered  wonders  how  great,  should 
owe  its  existence  to  the  little  son  of  a  spectacle- 
maker  playing  with  the  glasses  in  his  father's 
shop !     Who  can  remember  without  a  thrill  that 
silent  hour  of  night  under  the  fair  Italian  skies 
when  Galileo  turned  the  Tuscan  optic  glass  the 
first  time  to  the  heavens  and  beheld  what  no 
mortal  man  had  ever  gazed  on  till  then :  phases 
of  Venus,  the  rings  of  Saturn,  the  mountains  on 
the  moon   and  the   four  satellites   of  Jupiter; 
the  dividing  hour  of  the  old  astronomy  from 
the  new?     What  is  there  in  the  most  romantic 


16     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

novel's  description  of  the  meetings  of  Arthur 
and  Amelia,  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  after 
their  long  parting,  that  is  more  thrilling 
or  has  a  more  wonderful  series  of  events  grow- 
ing out  of  it  than  the  scene  when  Franklin  went 
out  into  the  fields  that  summer  afternoon  to 
meet  and  woo  the  lightning, — the  black  thunder- 
cloud in  the  background  angry,  one  might 
think,  at  the  prospect  of  losing  its  long  secret, 
the  little  kite  stooping  out  of  the  sky  as  an 
angel  bearing  a  message  unheard  of  before  in 
all  its  annals,  the  silent  earth  around  hushed  as 
if  to  catch  the  first  whisper  of  the  new  truth 
yearned  for  more  than  summer  shower,  the  long 
moment's  agony  of  doubt,  and  then  the  bristling 
up  of  the  little  threads  beneath  its  tread  as 
the  mighty  secret  along  its  slender  way  came 
rushing  down,  the  heroine  of  science  into  its 
hero's  arms?  Who  is  not  willing  to  forgive 
apples  which  from  the  times  of  Adam  and  Eve 
down  to  the  ones  we  ourselves  ate  green  as  chil- 
dren through  those  of  Paris  and  Helen  have 
often  pla}7ed  such  a  conspicuous  part  in  human 
destiny  all  their  maligner  influence  for  the 
sake  of  the  one  noble  specimen,  sweet  and  rich 
with  so  many  precious  truths,  that  fell  before 
Newton's  eyes  bringing  with  it  the  great  law 
of  gravitation?  And  what  is  there  in  any 
chase  that  knightly  band  went  forth  to,  out  of 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       17 

baronial  hall  with  winding  horn  and  mettled 
steed  and  eager  hound  in  the  proud  days  of 
old,  equal  in  excitement  and  grandeur  and 
romance  to  that  on  which  Leverrier  started 
forth  one  glorious  morn,  his  game  another 
world,  the  forest  in  which  it  roamed  a  wilderness 
of  stars,  the  only  footprints  it  was  known  ever 
to  have  made,  the  perturbations  of  another 
planet  two  billions  of  miles  away  so  slight  as  to 
carry  it  only  a  few  minutes  out  of  its  course, 
and  with  simply  his  long  array  of  figures  and 
algebraic  signs,  as  the  hounds,  with  which  to 
hunt  it  down, — what  victory,  too,  more  grand 
than  when  after  seventeen  months'  pursuit  over 
paths  and  through  depths  of  far-off  space  not 
even  thought  had  ever  trod  before,  his  trained 
and  faithful  band  hemmed  in  and  brought  to 
bay  a  monster  world  three  billions  of  miles 
away  from  earth  which  human  eye  had  never 
known  till  then,  so  that  writing  to  his  friend  in 
Germany  where  to  look,  having  no  glass  him- 
self, the  telescope  the  next  night  was  turned 
to  the  spot,  and  lo,  there  it  was  within  a  single 
degree  of  where  the  figures  had  pinned  it  down. 
And  the  results  of  scientific  discovery,  the 
majestic  facts  which  year  after  year  it  has 
brought  to  light,  how  they  appeal  to  wonder, 
to  admiration,  to  the  imagination,  to  our  sense 
of  the  beautiful  and  sublime,  to  almost  every 


18      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

faculty  of  our  being  that  poetry  itself  has  ever 
reached.  The  human  body,  the  body  of  the 
humblest  Amelia  that  ever  charmed  the  rustic 
eye,  though  resolved  by  the  first  touch  of 
science  into  only  a  few  salts  and  gases,  is  shown 
by  its  deeper  reading  to  be  a  magnificent  pal- 
ace, the  masterpiece  of  nature  struggled  up  to 
through  myriads  of  years  and  put  together 
with  a  skill,  style  and  beauty  of  finish  that  no 
architecture  of  the  middle  ages,  no  artist  of 
to-day  ever  devised  for  princely  blood,  a  throne 
of  the  spirit  where  a  thousand  subtle  forces 
form  a  realm  as  wide  as  the  universe,  and  pay 
their  homage,  worthy  in  its  glory  of  all  the 
most  enthusiastic  lover  has  ever  put  in  song. 
Matter  itself,  the  mere  dust  which  is  blown 
about  our  streets  and  pressed  beneath  our  feet,, 
the  despair  of  the  poet,  the  symbol  of  all  that 
is  vile  and  worthless,  the  thing  which  even 
theology  has  made  the  type  of  death  and  source 
of  evil,  rises  up  under  its  magic  touch  endowed 
with  laws  and  qualities,  and  possibly  arranged, 
each  particle  of  it,  in  world  systems  as  rich 
and  harmonious  as  those  of  the  brightest  stars 
above,  and  with  a  substance  as  immortal  and 
for  aught  we  can  now  say  as  godlike  as  that 
of  the  purest  human  soul.  It  opens  the  bosom 
of  earth,  this  earth  it  was  accused  at  first  of 
rendering    so    prosaic    and    commonplace,    and 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       19 

reveals  it  through  myriads  of  years  all  filled 
with  animals  and  plants,  scenery  and  action, 
that  for  strangeness,  variety,  for  picturesque- 
ness  and  dramatic  unfolding,  make  the  gods,  the 
fairies  and  genii,  the  myths  and  marvels  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  the  Norse  Edda  and  the  old 
classic  mythologies  only  as  the  crudest  shadows, 
yea,  tells  out  of  its  cavern  mouths  and  stony 
throats  and  lava  tongues,  the  history  of  cre- 
ation with  a  fullness  of  detail  and  a  wealth  of 
illustration  that  not  even  the  religious  vision 
had  ever  given  it  before; — carries  us  back 
through  the  long  ages  of  the  past  to  that  far 
day  when  the  globe  was  all  a  molten  ocean 
with  surges  of  fire  that  swept  from  pole  to 
pole ;  tells  of  a  time  when  chaos  and  night  sat 
brooding  o'er  the  dark  profound,  when  the  roar 
of  the  hurricane  above  was  answered  from  hour 
to  hour  by  the  crash  of  the  earthquake  be- 
neath; a  time  when  continents  rose  and  fell  as 
the  tides  of  the  sea,  and  mountains  were  doubled 
as  bits  of  cloth  and  the  world  as  a  bird  in  its 
shell  under  the  spirit  that  brooded  over  the 
deep  was  taking  its  first  rude  shape;  turns  us 
onward  to  the  scene  when  the  first  beam  of 
sunlight  broke  through  the  Cimmerian  darkness, 
when  the  first  rock  raised  its  head  above  the 
ocean  surges,  when  the  first  blade  of  grass  sent 
its  shaft  life-laden  out  of  the  soil  and  when  the 


20     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

first  bird  broke  with  its  voice  the  long  discord 
of  the  elements  and  sent  over  a  wilderness  world 
its  harmony,  prelude  of  what  the  angels  sang 
and  prophecy  of  the  anthem  in  which  all  its 
myriad  children  are  at  last  to  join. 

So  with  the  realms  above,  so  with  the  phe- 
nomena which,  day  by  day,  are  passing  before 
our  eyes.  There  is  not  one  it  does  not  clothe 
with  beauty,  not  a  poetic  myth  of  the  olden 
time  it  sets  its  foot  upon,  that  it  does  not  lift 
in  its  place  a  score  of  grander  truths.  The 
myriad  particles  of  vapor  rising  up  everywhere 
on  electric  wings  from  the  watery  surface  of 
the  globe,  marshaling  themselves  in  cloud 
squadrons  over  the  summer  sky  and  coming 
to  the  relief  of  drouth-beleagured  cities  and 
fields  in  the  long  serried  columns  of  pattering 
rain,  then  making  the  whole  world,  from  dewy 
flower  and  evening  sky  to  woman's  cheek  and 
childhood's  form,  flame  up  afresh  with  loveli- 
ness, are  surely  no  unfitting  counterpart  to  the 
old  myth  of  how  Venus  the  goddess  of  beauty 
was  born  from  the  foam  of  the  sea.  It  can 
hardly  be  spoken  of  as  a  loss  even  to  poetry 
that  the  lightnings  of  the  summer  shower  in- 
stead of  being  the  angry  flashes  of  Jove's 
wrath  are  recognized  as  the  subtle  lances 
that  electricity  is  shooting  through  a  thousand 
monsters   of  miasma  and  disease  in   a  mighty 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       21 

war  it  is  waging  for  the  welfare  of  man. 
The  moon  as  the  lover's  lamp  and  the  queen 
of  night  and  with  all  the  pretty  epithets  which 
the  poet  has  hung  around  it  is  now  trivial  in 
its  appeal  to  the  imagination  as  compared 
with  the  thought  of  science  that  it  is  the  dead 
child  in  the  great  household  of  worlds,  a  globe, 
once  indeed  with  its  verdant  fields  and  swarm- 
ing cities,  its  throbbing  hearts  and  eager 
minds,  its  poems  and  knowledge  and  civiliza- 
tion and  history,  but  now  every  vestige  gone, 
as  gradually  through  the  long  ages  of  the 
past  the  air  and  water  on  which  they  lived 
were  combined  with  its  solid  elements,  leaving 
it  to  swing  forever  a  gilded  tomb  in  the  silent 
sky.  What  is  the  classic  fable  of  the  sun  as  a 
fiery  chariot  that  Phoebus  is  driving  with  flam- 
ing steeds  across  the  azure  arch,  to  the  vision 
that  blazes  upon  us  through  the  telescope  and 
spectrum,  of  a  molten  world,  composed  of  the 
same  elements  as  our  own  earth,  only  twelve 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  times  as  large,  a 
world  where  the  winds  and  clouds  are  vaporized 
metal  and  the  heavens  melted  brass,  where  the 
oceans  and  rivers  are  made  of  liquid  gold,  where 
fountains  bubble  up  with  fire  and  the  showers 
descend  in  silver  rain,  where  the  snow-drifts  are 
quartz  and  diamond  and  the  dewdrops  literally 
are  precious  stones.     How  the  old  notion  of  the 


%%     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

heavens  as  an  arch,  covered  over  with  the  ab- 
surd figures  of  men  and  beasts,  is  dwarfed  be- 
fore the  splendid  truth  of  astronomy  that  they 
are  the  boundless  reaches  of  space  filled  with 
myriads  of  suns  and  worlds  and  systems  of 
worlds  endless  in  variety,  by  the  side  of  which 
our  own  earth  is  but  a  grain  of  sand  on  the 
sea-shore,  many  of  them  so  far  away  that 
light  itself  is  ages  in  coming  to  tell  their  story ; 
yet  all  bound  together  with  harmonious  laws 
and  peopled,  it  may  be,  with  a  myriad  forms 
of  conscious  life,  a  single  dash  of  science  that 
in  place  of  the  old  intelligences  it  has  swept 
away,  gives  us  what  crowds  of  beings  for  the 
fancy  to  play  among!  The  story  of  the  an- 
cient argonauts  launching  out  for  four  years 
along  the  untraversed  shores  of  the  classic, 
world  in  search  of  the  golden  fleece  and  appeal- 
ing so  with  their  strange  adventures  to  our 
young  imaginations,  who  will  say  it  is  not 
more  than  matched  to-day  by  the  astronomic 
story  of  our  whole  earth  and  its  kindred  worlds 
launched  on  the  soundless  depths  of  space 
sweeping  onwards  for  millions  of  years  under 
breaths  no  sails  are  raised  to  catch,  spoken 
ever  and  anon  by  flaming  comets,  plunging 
through  meteoric  streams  that  blaze  with 
phosphorescent  light  around  their  prows, 
rounding  in   the   course   of  ages  vast  sidereal 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       £3 

capes,  beholding  the  star  groves  they  have 
left  myriads  of  miles  away  close  slowly  up  be- 
hind them,  and  bound  for  a  golden  fleece  to  be 
reached  at  last  who  shall  say  on  what  far 
astral  shore ! 

Then,    too,    there    are    some    of    the    fairest 
dreams    of    the    ancient    philosophy    that    the 
magic   hand   of   science   is   touching,    only   to 
transmute   into   a   still   grander   reality.     The 
old    Ptolemaic    notion    of    the    music    of    the 
spheres  finds   its   consummation  in  the  beauti- 
ful  fact  that  the  waves   of  light  which  make 
the    different    colors,    pulsing    out    forty    and 
sixty  thousand  of  them  to  an  inch  and  at  the 
rate  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  thousand 
miles  a  second,  all  have  a  rhythmic  relation  to 
each  other  just  as  much  as  the  waves  of  sound, 
and  that  planets  and  suns  and  stars,  the  whole 
vast  host  of  the  heavens  above  us,  are  actually 
moving  onward  to  melodious  measures  and  with 
literal  truth  "forever  singing  as   they  shine." 
In    the    autumn    of    1859    as    the    astronomer 
Carrington  was  watching  the  sun  with  a  power- 
ful telescope,  a  bright  spot  was  seen  suddenly 
to  leap  upon  its  surface,  and  instantly  the  self- 
registering    magnetic    apparatus    of    the    Kew 
Observatory   was    sharply  disturbed,   a   violent 
magnetic  storm  began  its  sweep  over  the  earth, 
telegraphic    offices    were    set    on    fire,    brilliant 


24     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

auroras  flamed  up  in  the  northern  and  south- 
ern hemispheres,  a  thousand  human  lives  hang- 
ing by    subtle   threads    in   hospitals    and   sick- 
rooms were  cut  off  or  lengthened  out,  and  the 
magnetic  wave  sweeping  onward  from  the  con- 
fines   of   earth    dashed   in    amid    the    asteroids, 
made  the  huge  body  of  Jupiter  thrill  from  pole 
to  pole,  played  a  moment  over  Saturn's  silver 
rings,   rolled  over  the   shores   of  far-off  Nep- 
tune, and  spent  its  force,  who  shall  say  in  what 
far-off   depth    of   stellar    space.     It    makes    of 
the    solar  system  not   only   a   vast  unmeaning 
machine  bound  together  with  the  laws  of  grav- 
ity but  a  mighty  organ  whose  keys,  far  down 
in  the  sun's  depths  of  light  and  heat  and  mag- 
netism   and   actinic    force,   have   need   only   to 
be    touched    by    the    divine    fingers    and    lo,    a 
new  song  of  life  and  death,  a  new  march  of 
peace  and  war,  is  played  through  uncounted 
worlds,   a   hint,   is   it   not,   of  how   spirit  acts 
on  spirit  and  how  the  touch  of  prayer  is  made  to 
send  its  thrill,  and  of  hate  its  shudder  amid  the 
realms  of  soul ;  at  any  rate  affording  a  grander 
reading  than  any  commentary  of  theology  has 
ever  given  of  the  Apostle's  words:     "We  are 
members  one  of  another."     Light  itself,  so  sub- 
tle, so   wonderful,  so  swift,  so  like  a  flash  of 
spirit,  has  not  only  been  measured  and  picked 
apart,  and  its  threads  of  color  untwisted  and 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       25 

made  to  give  up  the  inmost  secrets  of  its  own 
being,  but  is  actually  found  under  the  eye  of 
science  to  be  written  over  in  its  spectral  lines 
with  a  language  impressed  upon  it  by  every 
substance  which  has  sent  it  out,  a  language 
which  can  be  read  as  surely  as  that  of  the 
printed  page,  and  which  it  conveys  as  swiftly 
as  though  Ariel  had  indeed  brought  its  mes- 
sage sliding  down  to  earth  on  a  sunbeam's 
slanting  ray,  and  which  tells  us  of  the  very 
things  of  which  the  heavenly  orbs  are 
made,  tells  us  of  salt  in  Sirius  and  bismuth 
and  lime  in  Beltegeux ;  that  they  burn 
hydrogen  gas  in  far-off  Eta  Argus,  and 
that  there  are  parts  of  the  Milky  Way  in  the 
heavens  above  us  which  literally  are  paved 
with  gold.  The  Darwinian  theory  of  Crea- 
tion, recognizing  only  one  great  tree  of  life 
rooted  far  down  amid  Ihe  rocks  of  the  geologic 
ages,  growing  upwards  for  myriads  of  years 
and  sending  out  of  itself  all  the  world  has 
ever  known  of  being,  thought  and  civilization, 
a  theory  full  of  mystery,  full  of  romance, 
aye,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  Church  has  said 
against  it  full  of  religion  too;  a  theory  un- 
proved as  yet,  but  bearing  on  its  brow  the  very 
lineaments  again  of  all  past  truth,  what  is  it 
but  a  new  and  grander  form  of  Yggdrasil,  the 
mystic  tree  of  life,  bearing  the  natives  on  its 


26     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

branches  and  having  memory  and  hope,  having 
all  history  and  philosophy  and  literature  in 
the  whisper  of  its  leaves,  the  wonderful  ash 
that  plays  such  a  part  in  the  old  Scandinavian 
mythology.  Science  unpoetic,  science  filling 
the  world  only  with  dreary  facts !  Why,  under 
its  magic  touch  what  is  the  whole  universe  but 
a  mighty  romance  whose  characters  are  stars 
and  planets  and  the  elements,  not  less  than 
human  beings ;  whose  chapters  the  geologic 
ages,  and  scenery  the  gorgeous  heavens  and 
vastness  of  stellar  space;  a  romance  of  most 
startling  interest  whose  far  beginning  we  have 
read  and  some  new  page  of  which  is  published 
from  day  to  day,  but  whose  plot,  so  intricate 
and  wonderful,  no  human  skill  can  unravel,  and 
whose  denouement  in  the  eternity  to  come 
science  alone,  science  without  the  subtler  sight 
of  faith,  must  try  in  vain  to  tell. 

And  this  fact,  the  fact  that  with  all  its 
powers  it  is  not  able  of  itself  to  solve  the  great 
problem  of  the  universe,  brings  us  finally  to 
the  thought  that  science  is  not  wanting  in 
that  element  which  is  needed  to  make  every  ro- 
mance complete,  the  element  of  love  and  mar- 
riage. Ages  ago  it  was  not  only  the  friend 
but  the  lover  and  betrothed  of  religion. 
Born  amid  the  retorts  and  crucibles  of  old 
Friar   Bacon  and  nourished  awhile  under  the 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  SCIENCE       27 

sheltering  roof  of  the  Church,  religion  knelt 
with  it  beside  the  altar,  captured  not  a  few  of 
its  tools,  some  of  which,  as  the  crucible,  bear 
names  of  her  betrothal  down  to  this  present 
day,  and  lavished  upon  it  all  the  fervor  and  en- 
thusiasm of  her  early  love.  But  like  so  many 
other  lovers  they  soon  had  their  quarrel.  The 
one  was  proud,  aristocratic,  conservative,  or- 
thodox; the  other  earth-born,  democratic,  radi- 
cal, heterodox.  Sharp  words  passed  between 
them;  their  hands  and  their  paths  parted. 
But  it  is  a  separation  which  cannot  last  for- 
ever. Religion,  though  it  has  had  many  other 
lovers, — philosophy,  logic,  wealth,  literature 
and  state,  has  never  met  one  yet  that  has  come 
so  near  to  her  heart  as  this.  And  science, 
though  it  has  grown  rich  and  strong  and  found 
a  glorious  happiness  in  its  work,  is  still  home- 
less, incomplete  and  with  a  yearning  ever  and 
anon  for  the  help  which  only  religion  can  give. 
They  are,  after  all,  complements  of  each 
other,  the  one  masculine,  daring,  strong,  the 
other  reverent,  loving,  tender, — both  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  both  embodiments  of  the  ever- 
lasting truth,  both  sent  to  earth  on  a  mission 
of  love.  And  at  last  the  one  liberalized  and 
the  other  sanctified  they  shall  make  up  their 
quarrel  and  stand  together  as  lovers  again  be- 
fore the  great  altar  of  nature.     God  himself 


28     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

shall  perform  their  marriage  rite,  the  fairest 
stars  of  heaven  sparkle  as  the  jewels  around 
their  brow;  earth  brings  its  flowers  from  ten 
thousand  fields  to  throw  at  their  feet,  all  the 
harmonies  of  this  lower  world  join  with  the 
choirs  above  in  singing  again  as  their  wedding 
song:  "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  peace 
on  earth,  good  will  to  men."  And  the 
romance  of  scientific  discovery  shall  be  com- 
plete in  its  finding  what  is  richer  than  all  the 
jewels  of  earth,  fairer  than  the  brightest  orbs 
of  night,  grander  than  all  the  laws  of  matter, — 
the  pearly  gates  of  the  spirit  world,  the  luster 
of  the  immortal  soul,  the  heaven-born  laws  and 
the  long-lost  love  of  a  sweet  and  true  religious 
faith. 


II 

WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS 

This  old  world  of  ours,  though  so  monoto- 
nous and  prosaic  in  its  ordinary  events,  has 
had  ever  and  anon  its  special  incidents,  incon- 
spicuous at  the  time,  but  which,  as  seen  now, 
are  thrilling  beyond  anything  romance  has 
ever  devised.  One  such  was  when  the  first  hu- 
man hand  struck  a  spark  of  fire  out  of  earth's 
physical  darkness,  sending  its  light  down  the 
long  vista  of  civilization's  future ;  another  when 
the  first  human  mind  struck  the  idea  of  deci- 
mal notation  out  of  its  mental  darkness,  giving 
to  progress  an  intellectual  helper  second  only 
to  what  fire  has  been  in  its  physical  realm;  yet 
another  when  Faust  first  put  his  movable  type 
together,  sending  out  over  the  world  the  light 
of  thought ;  others  when  the  words  liberty  and 
love  first  trembled  on  the  lips  of  society  and 
religion, — and  others  still,  when  Columbus, 
voyaging  with  his  three  ships  across  the  sea, 
first  beheld  this  new  world,  and  Galileo,  voy- 
aging with  his  optic  glass  across  space  first 
29 


30     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

saw  the  moons  of  Jupiter,  the  phases  of  Venus 
and  this  new  universe,  and  Newton,  voyaging 
with  his  figures  across  a  sheet  of  paper,  first 
beheld  the  secret  of  what  holds  all  worlds  and 
the  universe  itself  together.  But,  after  all, 
none  of  these  have  surpassed  in  significance 
the  proclamation  a  generation  ago  of  the  great 
doctrine  of  evolution,  none  given  the  world  a 
light  so  splendid  or  wrought  in  its  other  ideas 
'changes  so  vast.  Ridiculed  and  trampled 
down  at  first,  as  all  seed  truths  are  sure  to  be; 
charged  with  making  man  a  monkey  and  God 
a  monad,  it  has  won  to  itself,  in  a  single  genera- 
tion, the  faith  of  all  scientific  thinkers,  the 
homage  of  newspapers  and  reviews,  and  the 
respect  of  pulpits  and  theological  schools. 
Though  not  by  any  means  new  in  its  material, 
though  itself  an  evolution  on  whose  parts  all 
sciences  and  all  thinkers  from  the  very  begin- 
ning of  mind  have  been  working,  it  is  most  em- 
phatically a  new  use  of  the  material,  a  putting 
together  in  one  vast  structure  of  what  hith- 
erto had  been  regarded  as  separate  buildings. 
Other  philosophies,  to  be  sure,  have  attempted 
the  same  thing  with  regard  to  special  depart- 
ments of  the  universe, — some  its  cosmogony, 
some  its  organic  kingdoms,  some  its  society 
and  politics,  and  some  its  religion  and  ethics, 
but  the  grandeur  of  evolution  is  that  it  shows 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  31 

how  one  set  of  principles  runs  through  the 
product  of  everything,  from  the  making  of  a 
weed  to  the  making  of  a  world,  and  from  the 
lowliest  realm  of  matter  up  to  the  loftiest 
reach  of  society  and  the  soul;  to  the  striking 
out  of  a  spark  which  lights  up  all  the  past  as 
well  as  all  the  present,  and  reveals  the  connect- 
ing link  of  all  worlds  in  time,  as  gravity  does  all 
worlds  in  space.  And  though  it  is  not  by  any 
means  complete,  has  many  missing  links  to  be 
supplied  and  some  of  its  territory  fiercely  in 
dispute,  its  main  principles  are  settled  as  sure 
as  truth  itself,  and  transcending  all  the  other 
grand  contributions  of  our  age  to  the  world's 
progress,  it  bids  fair  to  be  the  one  thing  which 
is  to  make  the  nineteenth  century  forever 
memorable   in   the   history   of  human   thought. 

Who  will  say  that  such  a  subject  is  not  one 
which  every  person  living  in  the  world  to-day 
ought  to  know  something  about?  It  is  not  a 
mere  far-off  speculation,  not  a  department  of 
knowledge  which  belongs  properly  to  a  £ew 
professional  philosophers,  but  one  which  is  full 
of  great  practical  truths,  one  which  embraces 
the  laws  of  all  healthy  living  and  successful 
work,  one  which  affects  the  aspect  of  every 
object  the  whole  universe  has  to  show. 

Several  years  ago,  while  exploring  with  a 
party  of  friends  one  of  the  many  crablike  arms 


S3     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

with  which  Puget  Sound  on  the  western  side 
of  our  country  crawls  back  from  the  sea  up 
into  the  land,  our  boat  anchored  for  the  after- 
noon in  a  picturesque  spot  under  the  Olympic 
Mountains  to  allow  the  amateur  artists  on 
board,  mostly  ladies,  to  make  a  sketch  of  its 
beautiful  scenery.  Suddenly  the  silence  of 
lead-pencils  which  had  reigned  supreme  for  an 
hour  or  so,  was  broken  by  the  horrified  ex- 
clamation of  a  feminine  voice :  "Oh !  oh !  oh ! 
we're  all  adrift."  It  was  occasioned  by  a 
change  of  the  tide,  which  up  there  among  the 
innumerable  inlets  it  has  to  visit,  often  loses 
all  sense  of  its  obligations  to  the  almanac  and 
the  moon,  a  change  from  ebb  to  flow  that  was 
bearing  our  boat  from  its  anchor  a  cable's 
length  the  other  way.  On  coming  to  a  stand 
again,  which  it  did  in  a  few  moments,  most 
of  the  artists  recognized  the  changed  per- 
spective and  began  their  sketches  all  over 
again,  but  others,  hating  to  lose  their  previ- 
ous work,  went  on  and  finished  up  what  they 
had  started  upon  by  adding  to  it  the  incom- 
pleted things,  some  as  they  remembered  them 
and  some  as  they  now  appeared.  At  the  close 
of  the  afternoon  we  organized  an  extempore 
art  exhibition  in  which  the  wholly  new  pic- 
tures, though  somewhat  hasty,  showed  up 
fairly  well.     But  the  others !     Besides  the  hor- 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  S3 

rifled  jerk  of  the  pencil  where  the  exclamation 
"we're  all  adrift"  had  come  in,  as  unmeaning  in 
art  as  the  sudden  quirk  was  in  chirography 
which"  used  to  adorn  our  writing  books  at  the 
district  school  at  the  point  where  the  master 
had  come  up  from  behind  and  rapped  our 
knuckles  with  his  ruler  to  keep  us  from  mak- 
ing crooked  lines, — besides  this,  the  most  ludi- 
crous results  had  arisen  from  the  mixing  up  in 
them  of  the  two  perspectives,  the  houses  and 
logs  with  both  ends  visible,  the  dog,  the  Indian 
and  the  white  man  each  with  a  double  back- 
ground, and  a  beautiful  waterfall  and  long 
vista  through  the  woods,  which  could  not  be 
seen  at  first,  compelling  a  place  for  themselves 
in  the  final  sketch ;  and  as  we  compared  the  two 
sets  of  work,  we  all  concluded  that  the  best 
way  to  make  pictures  when  the  tide  has  turned, 
is  to  drop  the  old  sketches  and  draw  every  ob- 
ject from  its  new  point  of  view.  Well,  what 
took  place  with  our  tugboat  on  Puget  Sound, 
has  taken  place  in  our  day  with  the  bark  of 
thought  on  the  sea  of  life.  Its  tide  has 
changed,  the  great  tide  of  philosophy,  and 
changed  with  it  the  point  of  view  from  which 
the  whole  universe   is   to  be   seen. 

There  are  some  beholding  the  change  who 
are  exclaiming  in  horror  that  we  are  all  adrift ; 
some  who   refuse  to  recognize  it,   going  right 


34,     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

on  with  their  work  as  if  still  at  the  old  crea- 
tion standpoint ;  and  some,  who  while  recog- 
nizing that  they  are  at  a  new  position,  think 
that  the  only  safe  way  is  to  mix  up  the  two 
views  in  their  work, — look  at  nature  and  nat- 
ural science  from  the  standpoint  of  evolution, 
and  at  religion  and  ethics  from  that  of  crea- 
tion, and  who,  with  a  miracle  of  perspective 
such  as  the  devoutest  saint  painter  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  never  dreamed  of,  represent  the  Bible, 
Jesus,  Christianity  and  our  human  nature  as 
having  at  the  same  time  a  natural  and  a  su- 
pernatural origin.  But  evidently,  if  we  would 
not  make  our  work  ridiculous,  the  only  true 
way  is  to  lay  aside  reverently  all  forms  of  it 
drawn  from  the  old  position,  keeping  only  the 
ripened  skill  gained  from  it,  and  do  everything 
now  from  the  new  standpoint  of  evolution. 

Preeminently  is  such  a  change  needed  with 
regard  to  religious  work.  Its  great  eternal 
objects,  God,  man,  the  universe,  duty,  virtue 
and  immortality,  are  indeed  the  same  in  them- 
selves, but  their  perspective,  their  lights  and 
shadows,  and  their  relations  to  each  other  and 
to  the  eye  which  sees  them,  these  have  widely 
changed.  Their  supernatural  sides  and  ends, 
those  which  from  the  old  standpoint  were  often 
the  only  ones  seen,  have  disappeared,  and  their 
natural  ones  come,  as  never  before,  into  view. 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  35 

Henceforth,  if  we  are  to  have  any  complete 
and  harmonious  religion  at  all,  it  must  be  the 
one  which  evolution  reveals.  And  it  is  a  most 
remarkable  coincidence  that  now,  when  under 
the  influence  of  science  and  criticism  and  the 
world's  changed  spiritual  atmosphere  men's 
faith  in  the  written  Bible  as  an  authority  is 
being  so  rapidly  weakened,  this  larger,  unwrit- 
ten Bible,  with  its  new  interpreter,  should  so 
naturally  and  commandingly  sweep  into  its 
place. 

What,  then,  is  evolution?  We  all  know  the 
famous  definition  of  it  given  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer: "An  integration  of  matter  and  concomitant 
dissipation  of  motion  during  which  the  matter 
passes  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homo- 
geneity to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity, 
and  the  retained  motion  undergoes  a  parallel 
transformation."  It  is  a  definition  which  is 
admirable  for  scholars  who  have  the  strength 
of  mental  jaw  that  is  necessary  to  crack  open 
the  nut  of  hard  words  and  get  out  their  inner 
meat  of  meaning.  But  there  is  a  much  shorter 
and  easier  one  for  those  who  like  their  intel- 
lectual food  more  free  of  shells,  which  expresses 
its  central  idea  equally  well.  It  is  that  simply 
of  growth,  is  the  doctrine  that  everything 
which  now  is  or  ever  was  or  ever  will  be,  in- 
cluding the  universe  itself  with  all  its  changes, 


36     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

is  the  outcome  by  natural  laws  and  forces  of 
all  its  preceding  states.  It  is  not  a  principle 
thus  stated  which  in  itself  is  very  new  or 
startling,  is  what  men  have  always  known  and 
held  to  be  true  of  some  things  in  the  universe, 
as  the  flower,  the  tree,  the  animal,  the  state, 
but  is  something  they  had  hardly  thought  of 
before  as  holding  good  with  reference  to  the 
universe  as  a  whole.  They  were  like  the  negro 
girl  Topsy,  who,  when  told  that  God  made  her, 
loudly  denied  the  statement  as  ascribing  to 
that  individual  too  exclusive  a  credit,  affirming 
that  what  God  made  was  "just  a  little  tot  so 
high"  and  that  "she  herself  had  growed  the 
rest," — only  the  theologians  laid  the  chief 
stress  on  God's  part  of  the  world  affirming  that 
he  made  the  universe  so  high  that  all  it  had 
growed  itself  was  a  little  tot  here  on  earth. 
Evolution,  therefore,  merely  extends  to  the 
whole  what  everybody  had  thus  believed  in 
part, — teaches  that  it  all  grew,  earth  and  oak, 
universe  and  animal,  solar  system  and  soul. 
Arcturus  and  his  suns,  Adam  and  his  sons — 
give  allopathically  in  suns  and  stars  the  truth 
which  others  had  administered  homeopathically 
in  acorns  and  animalcules,  and  set  forth  also, 
as  never  before,  the  method  of  its  one  growth. 
What  converted  me  to  it  at  first  was  not  Dar- 
win or  Spencer,  but  an  illustrated  lecture  on 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  37 

the  growth  of  an  egg  into  a  chicken  which  was 
given  years  ago  by  a  naturalist  who  was  then 
a  decided  anti-evolutionist.  He  drew  repre- 
sentations of  what  took  place  in  the  egg  each 
day,  from  its  condition  as  a  simple  homogene- 
ous cell  through  its  segmentation,  gastraea 
stage,  separation  into  ento-,  endo-,  and  meso- 
blast,  and  unfolding  of  these  into  intestines, 
heart,  lungs,  bones,  brain,  eyes,  feathers,  wings, 
till  out  of  that  one  material,  without  any  out- 
side help,  there  came  the  living,  many-organed 
animal,  able  thenceforth,  till  man's  need  of 
chicken  broth  came  round,  to  take  care  of  itself. 
And  as  I  saw  the  process,  I  said  to  myself,  and 
said  afterwards  to  him,  "Why,  what  is  this  but 
a  type  of  the  very  thing  which  evolution  claims 
has  taken  place  with  this  whole  universe, — 
the  segmentation  of  its  nebulous  egg  into  solar 
systems,  then  their  folding  over  into  the  three 
layers  of  suns,  planets  and  satellites,  and, 
finally,  their  gradual  development  into  the 
backbone  of  continents,  the  arteries  and  heart 
of  rivers  and  seas,  the  limbs  of  genera 
and  species,  and  the  eyes  and  wings  of 
mind  and  soul?"  He  answered:  "But  there 
is  a  life  principle  in  the  egg  without  which  it 
never  could  have  taken  place ;"  to  which  I 
replied,  "True,  and  so  as  a  Christian  I  have 
always  believed  there  is  in  the  universe, — that 


38     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

it  is  not  a  dead  universe,  but  a  live  one, — has 
been  so  from  the  start;  and  if  this  little  finite 
life  of  an  egg  can  evolve  within  itself  a 
chicken,  why  not  in  the  same  way  the  infinite 
life  of  a  nebula  evolve  the  universe?"  I  did 
not  see  the  lecturer  again  till  five  years  had 
passed  away;  and  then,  to  my  delight,  I  found 
that  he,  too,  was  a  full-fledged  Darwinian  lec- 
turing on  evolution,  had  got  his  fledging,  as 
he  told  me,  the  same  as  I  had  mine  from 
the  wings  of  that  chicken.  And  the  best  way 
in  which  for  anyone  to  prepare  his  mind  for  a 
flight  into  the  loftier  regions  of  this  whole 
subject  is  for  him  to  begin  as  Darwin  himself 
did  with  the  familiar  everyday  phenomena 
which  are  right  around  him — go  out  into  the 
barnyard  and  dove-cote  to  learn  the  origin  of 
species,  study  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall 
to  know  what  God  and  man  is,  and  touch  the 
hem  of  the  garment  of  nature's  great  miracle- 
worker  in  weed  and  worm,  to  get  a  knowledge 
of  the  mystic  virtue  out  of  which  come  sun 
and  star. 

The  growth  of  inorganic  things,  sun  and 
star  and  the  world  at  large,  is  indeed  differ- 
ent, in  many  respects,  from  that  of  seed  and 
egg,  the  one  being  the  result,  apparently,  of 
external  forces,  while  the  other  is  the  unfolding 
of   a   principle   from   within.     But   the   differ- 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  39 

ence  is  one  of  degree  rather  than  of  kind. 
The  egg  and  the  seed  are  dependent  on  outside 
warmth  and  food  and  a  suitable  environment 
for  their  growth,  while  who  has  ever  watched 
the  shaping  of  a  crystal,  each  particle  going 
to  its  own  exact  place  without  outside  help ; 
or  the  wonderful  combinations  of  chemistry 
where  each  element  selects,  unaided,  its  own  af- 
finity ;  and  not  felt  that  equally  with  organic 
growth  its  controlling  power  was  within?  How 
inevitable  in  the  world  around  us  is  each  new 
state  of  things  the  outcome  by  natural  laws 
and  forces  of  its  preceding  state,  and  that 
again  of  some  other,  and  so  back  as  far  as 
mind  can  go?  Who  has  not  had  repeated  ex- 
periences in  his  own  career,  of  how  little  in- 
cidents, chance  meetings  and  careless  words 
too  insignificant,  apparently,  to  be  noted  even 
in  the  minutest  diary,  have  been  the  grains  of 
mustard-seed  out  of  which  have  come  great 
trees  in  whose  branches  all  the  birds  of  his  life's 
air  have  made  their  nests?  What  is  all  history 
but  a  process  in  which  every  event  is  at  once 
a  fruit  of  the  past  and  a  seed  of  the  future, 
a  seed  which  often  grows  more  wonderfully 
than  any  that  was  ever  planted  in  garden  or 
nourished  with  food?  Moses  carried  from  the 
Nile  a  few  select  principles  of  the  old  Egyptian 
civilization,  leaving  its  massive  tree  to  die,  and 


40     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

out  of  them  developed  what  splendors  of 
Hebrew  thought.  Jesus,  a  direct  product  of 
Hebraism,  scattered  on  the  soil  of  Palestine, 
— he  himself  called  them  only  seeds, — and  to- 
day half  the  world  is  eating  what  they  grew  to. 
Almost  three  hundred  years  ago  a  couple  of 
vessels  crossed  the  sea,  one  with  slavery,  the 
other  with  liberty,  in  its  hold;  and,  planted 
on  the  same  soil  and  influenced  by  the  same 
environment,  read  on  a  thousand  pages  of 
American  history  written  out  in  black  and 
white  and  red,  what  they  ripened  to.  Two 
hundred  years  later  a  descendant  of  that  old 
Puritan  stock,  mobbed,  ridiculed,  despised,  sent 
forth  his  ringing  cry :  Emancipate  the  slave ! 

"And  his  air-sown,  unheeded  words 
In  the  next  age  are  flaming  swords" 

on  the  points  of  which  blossom  Gettysburg 
and  Appomattox  Court  House,  and,  added  to 
the  human  race,  four  millions  more  of  free 
men.  And  with  the  great  field  of  all  time 
filled  with  such  things  as  these,  who  will  say 
that  there  is  any  better  definition  of  evolution 
than  to  call  it  simply  growth. 

In  subsequent  lectures  I  shall  speak  of  the 
various  stages  and  factors  of  this  growth,  of 
its  bearing  on  the  several  doctrines  of  religion, 
and  of  how  beautifully  it  lights  up  and  explains 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  41 

some    of   the    darkest    features    of   nature   and 
society,   and  intensifies   our  hope  for  a  better 
future  alike  here  and  beyond  the  grave;  and 
I    shall    try    to    do    it    not    by    doctoring    the 
genuine    article    with    any    pious    supernatural 
drugs,   not   by   covering  up   its    secular   week- 
day working  limbs  with  any  tailor-made  Sun- 
day   clothes,    but    by    presenting    it    from    the 
scientific    standpoint   exactly   as    it   is,   looking 
squarely  at  its  darker  and  more  terrible  aspects, 
and  only  putting  in  words  the  higher  meanings 
which  its  own  dumb  lips  are  speaking  in  signs. 
At  the  opening  meeting  of  a  class  for  its  study 
which  I  had  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  made  up  from 
people  of  all   faiths   and  of  no  faith   at  all,  I 
laid   down   a  similar  platform, — said  I   should 
not  try  to  twist  it  into  the  support  of  any  doc- 
trine or  any  church,  but  aim,  first  of  all,  to  get 
at   its   own  exact  truth,   and   asked   that   they 
would  then  join  with  me  in  recognizing  what- 
ever   either    of   religion    or    anti-religion    that 
truth  itself  might  stand  for.     Conducted  thus, 
many  people  who  could  not  have  been  drawn  by 
a  cart-rope  into  a  professedly  religious  service, 
felt  free  to  come  into  what  was  only  by  nick- 
name   "Mr.    Kimball's    Prayer    Meeting,"    and 
though  some  sensitive  souls  were  now  and  then 
troubled  with   the   shock   it   gave   to   their   old 
ideas,  it  was  merely  to  come  out  afterwards  into 


42     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

a  richer  new  faith,  and  at  the  close  of  the  first 
year,  one  young  man  representing  many  others, 
said  to  me,  "Until  I  came  to  these  meetings  I 
was  a  downright  atheist;  and  if  you  had  at- 
tempted to  use  them  directly  for  my  conver- 
sion, I  should  have  taken  the  alarm  at  once 
and  fled,  but  when  you  proposed  that  we  should 
all  be  ready  simply  to  look  where  the  thing 
pointed,  I  could  not  refuse ;  and  now  I  want  to 
tell  you  that  while  I  am  very  far  from  being  a 
full  noon-day  Christian,  I  have  got  the  first 
gleam  of  light  on  religion  that  I  ever  had,  and 
that  I  am  so  well  pleased  with  it  that  I  am 
going  to  follow  it  up  and  try  for  more." 

Does  not  the  conception  of  the  universe  as 
the  outgrowth,  all  through,  of  its  own  inherent 
forces  without  the  need  of  an  outside  Creator, 
fairly  viewed,  increase  a  thousandfold  rather 
than  diminish  its  real  religious  significance? 
It  is  only  savagery  which  thinks  that  a  thing 
to  be  done  by  Deity  at  all,  must  be  done  by  him 
from  the  outside,  and  each  thing  by  a  separate 
act9 — it  is  the  first  step  of  science  to  recognize 
that  it  may  be  done  more  divinely  from  within, 
and  by  the  hand  reaching  from  one  thing  into 
another  of  natural  cause  and  effect.  When 
we  were  children,  and  little  baby  brothers  and 
sisters  came  into  the  family,  and  we  older  ones 
were  curious  as  to  where  they  came  from,  our 


WPIAT  EVOLUTION  IS  43 

modest  aunts  and  fathers  used  to  tell  us  that 
the  doctor  brought  them,  an  answer  with  which, 
inasmuch  as  that  functionary  was  always 
around  at  such  times,  most  of  us  were  satis- 
fied. But  now  and  then  an  inquisitive  youth 
will  ask  the  question  back  of  that,  as  to  where 
the  doctor  got  them,  an  inquisitiveness  for 
which,  as  we  well  know,  its  exhibitor  was  gen- 
erally given  a  slap  on  the  back  and  told  to  go 
to  bed.  And  that  was  the  old  way  of  answer- 
ing the  question  as  to  where  new  species  of 
animals,  plants  and  worlds  came  from,  that  a 
doctor  Deity  brought  them,  an  answer  with 
which  multitudes  of  grown  children  were  once 
satisfied,  though  occasionally  even  then  an  in- 
quisitive scientific  brother  would  ask  yet  fur- 
ther where  Dr.  Deity  got  them,  resulting, 
alas,  how  often,  in  having  a  theological  father 
shut  up  his  mouth  forever  and  send  him  to  a 
graveyard  bed.  But  now  man  has  grown  up 
to  manhood,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  reason 
even  in  the  prudery  of  theology  why  he  should 
not  be  told  the  whole  exact  truth, — that  species 
come  from  species,  and  worlds  from  worlds,  by 
a  power  within  themselves;  that  the  universe 
itself,  with  all  its  grandeur,  was  once  a  mere 
embryo  babe  in  the  womb  of  time;  and  that 
nature  everywhere,  as  its  name  implies,  is  what 
forevermore    is    being    born,    evolution    every- 


44     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

where  what  forevermore  is  growing  up.  The 
very  last  thing  with  which  to  charge  such  a 
view  is  irreligion.  Who  that  has  not  had  his 
eyes  blinded  with  custom,  can  go  out  into  his 
garden  in  springtime,  and  see  the  humblest 
plant  making  its  way  without  spade  or  hoe  out 
of  the  dark  soil,  unfolding,  unschooled,  its 
needed  stalk  and  leaves,  and  painting  and  carv- 
ing its  flower  and  fruit  from  an  ideal  within 
itself,  and  not  feel  a  thrill  of  wonder?  Who  can 
take  his  little  daughter  in  his  arms,  a  mere  lump 
of  flesh,  and  behold  feature  after  feature  round- 
ing into  beauty  and  faculty  after  faculty  into 
brightness,  till  glorious  womanhood  is  reached, 
all  by  a  power  which  he  knows  is  not  his  own, 
and  not  feel  that  here  is  a  temple  above  all  that 
art  has  ever  built,  in  which  to  worship,  here  an 
image  transcending  any  that  Angelo  ever 
carved  or  Raphael  ever  painted,  before  which 
to  bow?  And  to  look  with  the  eye  of  science 
on  this  whole  universe  sending  up  its  first 
tender  shoot  out  of  matter's  primeval  soil,  and 
carving  on  it  the  stalk  of  constellations  and 
the  leaves  and  fruit  of  satellites  and  suns,  and 
to  behold  a  baby-world  shaping  itself  into  the 
features  of  sea  and  continent,  unfolding  on 
its  cheek  the  beauty  of  sunsets  and  flowers,  and 
growing  up  into  the  faculties,  one  after  another, 
of  love  and  thought  and  soul, — if  there  is  any- 


WHAT  EVOLUTION  IS  45 

thing,  anywhere  which  can  give  man  a  sense  of 
the  Infinite  Mystery,  is  it  not  such  a  sight — 
anything,  anyhow,  which  can  move  him  to  re- 
ligion, is  it  not  such  a  marvel? 


Ill 

THE  THREE  GREAT  STAGES  OF 
EVOLUTION 

Evolution  was  defined  in  my  last  lecture  as 
only  the  more  scientific  term  for  what  is  ordi- 
narily known  as  growth.  But  what  is  growth? 
The  idea  commonly  prevailing  that  it  is  merely 
an  increase  of  size,  loses  sight  of  its  most  es- 
sential features,  and  is  one  which,  in  the  in- 
terests alike  of  science  and  morality,  we  need 
most  emphatically  to  get  rid  of.  You  have 
heard  the  story  of  the  old  deacon,  who  mistak- 
ing the  label  which  had  dropped  from  his  wife's 
spool  of  cotton  for  a  piece  of  court-plaster, 
deliberately  placed  it,  one  Sunday  morning,  on 
his  naturally  enormous  nose  so  that  as  he  went 
round  for  the  contributions,  all  the  smiling 
congregation  read  on  it,  "Warranted  to  hold 
out  200  yards."  And  yet,  ridiculous  as  the 
deacon's  mistake  was,  how  many  are  the  million- 
aires, and  how  many  the  cities,  and  nations,  and 
even  churches,  that  as  the  evidence  of  their 
growth,  are  striving  consciously  and  proudly 
46 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      47 

to  label  its  one  enormous  feature  with  precisely 
the  same  outward  assurance.  What  we  need 
to  learn  is  that  the  chief  element  of  all  real 
growth  is  interior,  the  arrangement  of  its 
material,  whether  more,  or  less,  into  new  organs, 
and  these  into  the  capacity  for  new  functions. 
The  growing  nation  is  not  the  one  which  is 
adding  Canadas  and  Cubas  and  Hawaiian 
Islands  to  its  borders  and  half-breed  millions 
to  its  population,  but  the  one  which  is  adding 
arts  and  sciences,  and  a  higher  civilization,  and 
a  better  internal  organization  to  the  extent 
and  people  it  already  has ;  the  growing  church, 
not  the  one  that  is  increasing  in  noses  and 
square  feet,  but  the  one  which  is  increasing  in 
knowledge  and  square  conduct ;  and  as  regards 
the  individual,  it  is  not  till  he  has  done  growing 
as  an  animal  that  he  grows  fastest  of  all  as  a 
man.  So  with  evolution.  It  is  a  process  which 
goes  on  within,  an  increase  in  organs  and 
functions ;  and  there  are  three  great  stages  to 
it,  each  of  them  independent  of  any  outward 
enlargement,  which  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  it, 
need  to  be  carefully  studied. 

The  first  is  that  of  homogeneity,  or  same- 
ness, a  stage  in  which  the  material  to  be  evolved 
is  all  of  one  kind  in  one  condition  and  without 
any  division  whatever  into  organs  or  parts.  It 
is  a  stage  whose  recognition  is  one  of  the  great 


48     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

distinctive  points  in  the  modern  Spencerian  idea 
of  evolution,  as  against  the  idea  of  it  which 
once  prevailed.  The  old  theory  held  that  the 
starting  place  of  all  growth  was  a  minute 
image  of  its  adult  form,  a  germ  in  which  every- 
thing existed  exactly  as  it  was  afterwards  to 
be,  only  on  a  smaller  scale;  and  it  was  thought 
that  if  science  merely  had  a  microscope  power- 
ful enough,  it  would  see  in  every  cell  a  portrait 
of  the  future  animal,  and  in  every  seed  a  pic- 
ture of  what  was  to  rise  from  it  as  a  full-grown 
plant,  a  theory,  very  singularly,  which  in  a 
modified  form  lies  at  the  foundation  of  Weis- 
mann's  famous  doctrine  of  heredity.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  most  powerful 
microscopes,  instead  of  revealing  any  such 
images  in  the  germinal  cells  of  animals  and 
plants,  are  able  to  find  in  them  only  a  minute 
particle  of  almost  wholly  unorganized  proto- 
plasm, with  no  more  resemblance  to  what  grows 
from  it  than  a  bed  of  clay  has  to  a  completed 
and  many-roomed  brick  house.  And  though  it 
is  doubtful  whether  there  is  anything  in  the 
universe  now  which  is  at  its  perfectly  homo- 
geneous stage,  even  its  raw  material  having 
been  ages  ago  wonderfully  elaborated,  yet, 
whenever  we  do  go  back  to  the  starting-point 
of  any  of  its  special  forms,  we  find  infallibly 
an  approach  to  such  a  stage.     The  oak  begins 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      49 

its  growth  as  an  acorn,  without  root  or  limb 
or  trunk;  the  animal  as  a  blending  of  two  pro- 
toplasmic cells,  without  muscle,  bone  or  brain; 
all  life  as  we  go  down  the  rocks,  in  simpler  and 
simpler  forms  till  its  two  kingdoms  unite  in 
one  protistic  root.  Society,  at  first,  had  no 
distinction  of  classes,  or  occupations,  or  institu- 
tions, or  property,  or  even  of  wives  and  chil- 
dren, each  of  its  members  being  at  once  hunter, 
warrior,  farmer,  mechanic,  and  all  things  being 
held  in  common.  Even  in  the  realm  of  mind,  the 
five  senses  of  the  earliest  animals  were  merged 
together  in  that  of  feeling  alone ;  all  their  fac- 
ulties in  those  of  nutrition,  reproduction  and  de- 
fense. Language,  to  start  with,  was  only  a  sin- 
gle guttural  sound;  grammar  for  ages  only  a 
noun  and  verb ;  mathematics  only  a  counting  of 
five  and  ten;  and  religion  only  a  superstitious 
fear.  Back  of  all  history  the  earth  itself  was  a 
molten  globe  without  mount  or  meadow,  sea  or 
shore.  And  going  back  still  further,  evolution 
holds  that  the  universe  as  a  whole, — all  worlds, 
all  animals  and  plants,  all  matter  and  all  that 
matter  has  ever  been  or  will  be, — was  simply  a 
nebulous  mist,  homogeneous  in  substance  and 
all  diffused  in  space,  or,  as  the  old  Bible  has 
it,  was  "without  form  and  void." 

It  was  an  original  state  of  things  which,  es- 
thetically  viewed,  was  dreary  enough;  a  cloud 


50     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

unrelieved  with  even  the  possibility  of  a  silver 
lining,  but  one  which  from  the  standpoint  of 
evolution  was  full  of  profoundest  interest. 
What  mother  bending  over  the  undeveloped 
face  of  her  babe  asleep  in  its  cradle,  ever  found 
it  dull  and  dreary, — did  not  read  in  its  un- 
written lines  entrancing  prophecies  of  a  mighty 
future,  and  in  its  unprinted  features  whole 
volumes  of  heroic  deeds  and  shining  virtues ; 
and  when  the  undeveloped  face  was  that  of  a 
baby  universe  lying  asleep  in  its  cradle  of  space, 
how  much  more  fascinating  to  the  scientific  eye 
its  apparent  blankness.  As  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  walking  along  a  country  road  one 
day,  he  came  across  a  boy  playing  in  the  mud, 
and  thinking  to  quiz  him  a  little,  he  inquired 
what  he  was  doing.  "Making  a  meeting-house," 
replied  the  boy.  "Yes,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  "I 
see  the  meeting-house,  but  where  is  the 
minister?  Wrhy  don't  you  make  him,  too?" 
"Because,"  answered  the  boy,  glancing  at  the 
cloth  of  his  inquisitor,  and  taking  in  the  situ- 
ation,— "because  there  wasn't  mud  enough  here 
to  make  a  minister  with."  But  in  nature's 
original  mud  there  was  no  such  deficiency. 
Space  was  filled  with  enough  of  it  to  make  not 
only  ministers  and  meeting-houses  with,  but  all 
even  of  the  subtlest  things  they  have  ever  stood 
for,  since.     And  though  it  had  no  actual  image 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION     51 

of  anything  within  it,  it  had  the  possibilities, 
and  the  laws,  and  forces,  out  of  which  every- 
thing was  to  come,  had  them,  too,  independent 
of  any  disturbing  environment,  so  that  an  in- 
telligence knowing  them  all,  might  have  read 
in  it  then,  not  with  a  mother's  fancy,  but  with 
a  mathematician's  figures,  the  whole  of  its  after 
history, — all  the  starry  worlds  it  would  sparkle 
with,  all  the  races,  nations,  civilizations  and 
religions  it  would  give  rise  to,  all  its  coming 
literature  and  science,  Homer's  "Iliad"  in  some- 
thing more  original  than  its  own  native  Greek, 
and  Spencer's  "Evolution"  in  the  very  atoms  to 
be  evolved, — all  its  battlefields  and  hero  deeds 
and  manly  deaths,  its  every  lover's  vow  and 
maiden's  yes,  Beethoven's  symphonies  while 
yet  in  the  eternal  silence,  the  Parthenon  while 
still  in  its  elemental  dust,  all  even  that  any 
American  Congress  will  ever  do,  its  every  event 
till  the  whole  thing  sinks  back  into  a  nebula 
again, — such  the  raw  material,  the  great  neb- 
ulous egg,  with  which  evolution  began  its  work. 
Its  second  stage  is  that  of  differentiation, 
the  gradual  separation  and  variation  of  its 
homogeneity  into  a  myriad  distinct  parts.  We 
hear  a  great  deal  said  in  our  day  about  the 
blessedness  of  unity  and  equality, — are  inclined 
to  look  on  dividedness  and  diversity  as  the 
source  of  all  evil,  indeed  have  implied  as  much 


m     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

in  one  of  the  names  Deuce  or  Second,  given  to 
the  devil;  and  sometimes  think  that  to  get  rid 
of  them  and  get  oneness  and  likeness  in  their 
place,  especially  as  regards  religion,  would  be 
to  get  very  near  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
There  was  a  young  man  residing  in  Boston, 
awhile  ago,  who  was  engaged  to  one  of  a  pair 
of  twin  j^oung  ladies  out  on  Commonwealth 
Avenue,  both  of  them  very  beautiful,  and  so 
exactly  alike  that  their  own  parents  were  con- 
tinually mistaking  one  for  the  other.  Some- 
one asked  him  how  in  the  world  he  was  able, 
Sunday  nights,  when  he  went  to  do  his  court- 
ships, to  distinguish  them  apart — know  which 
to  kiss  and  caress  and  which  to  be  only  a 
brother  to,  a  question  this  Boston  youth,  who 
in  everything  else  had  been  taught  to  distinguish 
carefully  between  tweedle-dee  and  tweedle-dum, 
answered  by  saying  unblushingly,  "Well,  to 
tell  the  truth,  I  do  not  try."  And  so  there  are 
many  would-be  reformers  who  would  have  every 
thing  in  the  world,  especially  all  churches,  all 
creeds,  all  estates,  all  classes,  so  twinlike  and 
perfect  that  there  would  be  no  rivalries,  no 
competitions,  no  jealousies  between  them,  no 
person  interested  to  get  the  favors  of  the  one 
any  more  than  of  the  others.  But  nature,  ex- 
cept now  and  then  to  a  Boston  youth,  does  not 
gratify  such  a  desire,  has   made  division   and 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      53 

differentiation  not  lapses  out  of  good,  but  a 
normal  and  vital  part  of  all  upward  progress. 
The  moment  a  thing  begins  to  grow,  it  begins 
to  divide  and  to  have  its  divisions  differ, — the 
seed  into  radicle  and  plumule,  and  then  into 
all  the  multiplied  roots,  limbs,  leaves,  tissues 
and  flowers  of  the  full-grown  plant;  the  cell 
into  segments,  and  these  into  all  the  myriad 
organs:  bones,  brain,  nerves,  muscles,  stomach, 
heart  and  the  like,  of  the  adult  body ;  and  life 
itself  into  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms, 
and  these  into  all  the  varied  classes,  orders, 
genera,  species  and  varieties  that  zoology  and 
botany  are  familiar  with.  The  earth  grew  by 
separating  its  original  nebulous  mass  into 
water,  land  and  air,  and  these  into  all  the  long 
list  of  natural  divisions  that  geographical  boy- 
hood, with  a  prize  in  view,  learns  to  rattle  off ; 
the  stellar  universe  by  separating  its  diffused 
nebulous  mist  into  suns,  planets,  satellites  and 
comets,  having  its  one  star  differ  from  another 
star  in  glory ;  the  nebulous  mist,  probably,  by 
differentiating  matter  into  its  sixty-seven 
chemical  elements;  and  possibly  matter  itself 
out  of  some  primitive  substance  where  with 
ether  and  force  it  was  all  one.  Mind  divides  in 
the  same  way  into  its  varied  appetites,  affec- 
tions, aspirations  and  faculties;  speech  into 
languages,  literatures,   sentences,  words;  poli- 


54     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

tics  into  parties ;  philosophy  into  schools ;  and, 
under  precisely  the  same  law,  is  it  not,  religion, 
into  religions,  sects,  creeds,  churches  and 
church  splits.  Even  where  there  seems  at  first 
an  exactly  opposite  law,  what  Darwin  calls 
"the  persistence  of  the  type" — species  of 
animals  and  plants,  the  same  now  as  in  the 
geologic  ages,  nebulae  that  have  never  func- 
tioned into  worlds,  religions  and  social  states 
stationary  since  man  became  man,  and  an  old 
fogginess  now  and  then  in  our  human  nature 
itself  which  seems  a  part  of  its  old  primal 
mist, — even  in  such  cases  it  is  only  a  subtler 
method  of  variation,  is  differentiation  itself 
differentiated;  and  its  result  a  vastly  greater 
diversity  than  would  be  possible  under  its  uni- 
form action. 

What  is  the  use  of  this  dividing  and  differ- 
ing that  nature  is  so  full  of,  what  the  part  it 
has  to  act  as  a  stage  in  evolution?  One  of  its 
uses,  seen  especially  in  the  organic  world,  is  the 
getting  of  more  food.  Variety  is  not  only 
the  spice  of  life,  but  very  largely  its  meal- 
earner,  its  cook  and  its  main  dish.  One  of  the 
mathematical  truths  taught  the  youth  of  our 
land  at  college,  and  usually  forgotten  as  soon 
as  taught,  is  that  while  the  bulk  of  bodies  in- 
creases in  proportion  to  the  cube  of  their  di- 
ameters,  their   surface   increases   only   in  pro- 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      55 

portion  to  their  squares.  It  is  a  truth  which 
every  little  cell,  animal  and  vegetable,  had  to 
learn  ages  ago  as  the  very  first  condition  of 
its  continued  existence;  that,  too,  without  any 
colleges,  or  professors,  or  black-boards,  or  even 
brains.  For  its  food  being  taken  by  absorp- 
tion through  its  surface  while  its  use  of  it  was 
by  its  whole  body,  the  larger  it  grew,  the  larger 
the  disproportion  became  between  its  demand 
and  supply,  that  is,  every  time  it  doubled  in 
thickness,  it  had  eight  times  as  much  body  that 
needed  food,  but  only  four  times  as  much  sur- 
face through  which  to  get  it;  and  the  question 
was,  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it? — a 
question  it  had  at  once  to  solve,  or  starve.  It 
solved  it  how?  Simply  by  dividing  its  body 
into  two  parts,  and  then  as  fast  as  it  grew, 
dividing  it  again,  so  that  with  the  more  sub- 
stance to  be  fed,  it  always  had  in  its  smaller 
divisions  more  surface  through  which  to  get 
the  food.  I  do  not  suppose  there  has  ever 
been  since,  a  mathematical  problem  on  the  face 
of  this  earth  on  which  so  much  depended, — 
reproduction  and  all  the  immense  social  system 
of  which  it  is  the  base.  The  wisdom  it  involved 
is  what  the  statesman  of  the  world  with  all  their 
boasted  brains,  especially  the  Jingo  part  of 
them,  have  never  yet  caught  up.  We  still 
think,  even  in  our  own  land,  that  the  mathe- 


56     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

matical  law  is  the  other  way,  namely,  that  the 
more  a  nation  grows  in  bulk,  the  larger  will 
be  the  proportion  of  its  growth  in  the  means 
of  life,  so  are  trying  all  the  time  to  enlarge  our 
territory.  But  nature  does  not  change  her 
mathematics  in  passing  on  from  amoebas  to 
Americas,  and  from  cells  to  states ;  and  so  it  is 
a  most  remarkable  fact,  that  while  nations  with- 
out number,  trying  to  perpetuate  themselves 
by  adding  to  their  outward  size,  have  age  after 
age  disappeared,  that  first  microscopic  cell, 
which  without  book  or  brains  solved  the  prob- 
lem by  making  itself  many  and  small,  is,  ac- 
cording to  Weismann,  the  one  living  thing  on 
this  earth  which  has  thus  far  proved  itself 
immortal. 

It  is  a  wisdom  which  nature  herself  has  used 
very  largely  all  through  her  kingdom.  Why 
does  the  tree  separate  into  its  myriad  branches, 
twigs  and  leaves?  Because  thereby  it  gets 
more  sunshine  and  air  to  aid  in  its  growth  than 
it  could  with  them  all  condensed  in  a  single 
trunk.  Why  do  animals  and  plants  divide  into 
their  different  needs  and  capacities  they  get 
orders,  genera  and  species?  Because  with 
vastly  more  nourishment  out  of  their  common 
earth  than  they  could  if  all  were  of  the  same 
structure  and  had  to  feed  on  the  same  things. 
And  is  not  this  the  very  reason  why,  in  the 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      57 

divine  economy,  religion,  also,  has  divided  into 
its  innumerable  sects,  churches  and  creeds, — 
that  matter  about  which  so  many  people,  de- 
spising the  lessons  of  evolution,  are  so  terribly 
troubled,  because  it  gets  thereby  more  of  the 
eternal  sunshine  and  air,  and  of  truth  and  God, 
than  it  could  if  it  were  all  gathered,  as  so  many 
would  have  it,  in  a  single  church? 

Along  with  the  gain  in  food,  which  comes 
from  differentiation,  is  its  equal  gain  in  effi- 
ciency. One  of  the  sentences  set  for  us  to  learn 
penmanship  by  in  our  old  writing-books,  was 
"Union  is  Strength,"  but  coming  in  before  that 
in  the  copy-book  of  nature  was  the  exactly 
opposite  maxim  that  division  also  is  strength. 
An  army  with  its  forces  differentiated  into 
artillery,  cavalry  and  infantry,  officers  and 
men,  is  surely  a  stronger  army,  though  as 
regards  the  officers  and  men  some  of  our  militia 
regiments  seem  to  think  otherwise,  than  the 
one  which  has  them  all  united  in  a  single  de- 
partment. The  sun  which  is  going  to  make 
things  grow,  cannot,  evidently,  be  one  in  mass 
with  the  planet  on  which  the  growing  is  to  be 
done.  The  apostle  Paul  wisely  asks,  "If  the 
whole  body  were  an  eye,  where  were  the  hear- 
ing? If  the  whole  were  hearing,  where  were  the 
smelling?"  What  would  society  be  as  to  effi- 
ciency, if  all  its  members  were  mechanics  or  mer- 


58     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

chants  or  even  ministers  ?  That  was  a  wise  old 
deacon  who  thanked  the  Lord  for  his  saints,  but 
who  praised  him,  also,  that  as  long  as  there  was 
so  much  dirty  work  yet  in  the  world  to  be  done 
(it  was  at  the  close  of  a  great  political  campaign 
in  which  his  party  was  victorious),  there  were 
also  a  plenty  of  sinners  exactly  fitted  for  its 
doing.  And  in  the  universe  all  through,  it  is  its 
endless  diversity  of  taste  and  talent  which  en- 
ables it  to  accomplish  its  endless  diversity  of 
work, — the  worm  which  crawls,  things  which 
would  have  to  remain  forever  neglected,  if  it 
were  a  twin  with  the  bird  that  sings  or  the 
soul  that  soars. 

More  important  still,  if  life  had  grown  up  a 
single  homogeneous  unit,  it  would  necessarily 
have  had  as  its  moral  qualities  only  selfishness 
and  self-regard,  would  have  been  only  a  single 
spoiled  world-child.  It  is  because  it  has  dif- 
ferences, that  each  of  its  members  has  some- 
body besides  himself  to  love  and  enjoy;  because 
it  has  differences  that  it  has  affections  and 
friendships  and  families  and  society  and  self- 
sacrifice  and  ethics  and  all  the  highest  qualities 
of  soul;  and  with  all  the  strife  and  alienations 
which  it  also  involves,  who  that  has  ever  known 
what  love  is,  will  say  that  the  dividedness  which 
has  made  it  possible  is  not  worth  a  myriad 
times  over,  all  its  cost? 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      59 

It  is  this  love  made  possible  through  differ- 
entiation, which  opens  up  into  the  third  great 
stage  of  evolution,  that  of  integration,  or  the 
coordination    and    joining    of    its    diversities, 
each  undestrojed,  into  a  single  organic  whole. 
Separation   with  all   its   prominence  in  nature 
is  not  an  end,  but  a  means ;  and  as  soon  as  the 
parts  have  been  separated  long  enough  to  be 
in  no  danger,  when  left  to  themselves,  of  flowing 
back    again   into   homogeneity,   the   alienations 
and  hatreds   which   kept   them  apart  die  away 
to  make  room  for  integration,  and  it  is  to  be 
especially   noticed    that    the    differences    them- 
selves,   instead    of    being    obliterated,    are    the 
very  things  which  are  made  use  of,  as  with  the 
spring  and   wheels   and   hands    and   face   of   a 
watch,  to  render  the  integration  the  more  com- 
plete.    It   is  not   a  process  which  in   nature's 
workshop    has    to    wait    till    differentiation    is 
finished  before  it  can  be  entered  upon,  but  one 
which  is  going  on  side  by  side  with  it  all  the 
time ;  things  like  the  bones  of  the  human  body, 
which  are  differentiated  from  each  other,  being 
integrated  as  a  skeleton,  and  that  in  turn  be- 
coming a  differentiation  from  the  muscles  and 
nerves,   and   then   with    all   the   other  parts,   a 
member  of  the  body  as  a  whole.     And  though 
the  process  as  yet  is  very  far  from  being  every- 
where   finished,    though    we    have    wolves    and 


60     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

tigers  and  nations  and  churches  and  social 
classes  separated  widely  from  each  other  with 
hatreds,  rivalries,  persecutions,  tariffs  and 
wars,  we  do  already  have  some  things,  as  the 
solar  system,  the  human  body,  the  family  and 
to  some  extent  the  world's  business,  in  which 
it  has  proceeded  a  long  way,  and  these  are 
prophecies  of  what  the  whole  universe,  even  its 
religions,  are  destined  at  last  to  become. 

What,  now,  is  the  use  of  integration?   What 
the  purpose  it  fulfills  in  the  economy  of  nature? 
The  answer,  so  far  as  its  finite  forms  are  con- 
cerned, is  plain  enough.     It  is  the  same  as  that 
with   regard  to   differentiation,   only   more   so, 
greater    efficiency   in   getting   food   and   doing 
work.     It  is  commonly  laid  down  as  an  indis- 
putable axiom  that  the  whole  cannot  be  greater 
than  the  sum  of  its  parts,  or  a  society  have  any 
virtue  above  what  is  in  its  individual  members ; 
but,   however   true    in   mathematics    and   meta- 
physics, it  is  utterly  false  as  regards  evolution. 
Heap  the  parts   of  a  watch  together  forever, 
and,  no  matter  how  well  made  they  may  be  as 
parts,     they    will    never    keep    time.      Coordi- 
nate them  as  an  integrated  whole,  and  they  will 
run   on  parallel  with  the  sun  itself.     Add  the 
members   of  the  human  body   one  to   another, 
and  you  do  not  get  even  a  live  animal ;  organize 
them  in  their  relations  and  you  get  a  loving, 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      61 

thinking,  aspiring  man.  And  when  all  the 
myriad  parts  of  this  vast  universe  are  thus  put 
organically  together,  its  races,  nations, 
religions,  trades,  professions,  parties,  pleas- 
ures, pains,  suns  and  stars,  keeping  time  like 
the  watch,  and  animated  with  one  spirit  like  the 
body,  who  shall  say  what  it  will  not  be  capable 
of,  for  God  and  man? 

It  is  a  stage  of  evolution  which  suggests  in- 
evitably the  natural  and  divine  ideal  of  church 
unity,  not  the  bringing  of  all  men  into  one 
creed,  one  ritual,  one  polity,  but  the  bringing 
of  them,  with  all  their  diversities  just  as  they 
now  are,  many  members,  into  one  body,  ani- 
mated with  one  spirit.  Religion  has  tried  long 
enough  the  making  of  them  into  one  belief. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  going  on  the  platform  to 
make  an  antislavery  speech  during  the  dark 
days  before  the  war,  was  met  by  a  proslavery 
mob  who,  the  moment  he  opened  his  mouth, 
began  to  hiss  him  down.  Waiting  with  a  smile 
till  they  had  to  stop  to  take  breath,  he  man- 
aged to  slip  in  the  words,  "You  remind  me  of 
my  grandfather,"  when  instantly  there  was  a 
hush  of  curiosity  to  hear  how.  "My  grand- 
father," said  he,  "was  a  blacksmith,  and  I  am 
sorry  to  say  not  a  very  good  blacksmith.  But 
one  day  he  thought  he  would  make  a  broad-ax. 
So  he  got  a  piece  of  steel  on  which,  after  heat- 


62     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

ing  it  at  the  forge,  he  hammered  and  ham- 
mered; but  somehow  the  more  he  hammered  the 
less  it  looked  like  a  broad-ax.  Then  he 
thought  'I'll  make  it  a  common  ax.'  So  he 
heated  it  and  hammered  and  hammered  again, 
and  as  he  did  so,  the  less  and  less  it  looked 
like  a  common  ax.  Then  he  thought,  'Well, 
I'll  make  it  a  hatchet,'  and  once  more  he  heated 
and  hammered,  but  with  the  same  result. 
Then  he  got  mad,  and  heating  it  white  hot 
he  plunged  it  into  a  tub  of  water  exclaiming: 
'Well  there's  one  thing  I  can  do  at  any  rate,  I 
can  make  a  plaguey  good  hiss,'  "  a  story  which 
secured  Mr.  Beecher  a  most  amiable  and  at- 
tentive audience.  Well,  that  is  exactly  the 
way  grandfather  church  used  to  work  at  mak- 
ing religious  unity.  It  could  take  a  heretic 
and  heat  him  and  try  to  hammer  him  first  into 
a  broad-ax  saint,  then  into  a  common  ax 
one,  then  into  a  hatchet  one,  and  then  it  would 
get  mad  and  heat  him  up  in  an  auto-da-fe 
and  plunge  him  down  into  hell  where  at  any 
rate,  it  could  make  with  him  a  plaguey  good 
hiss.  But  in  either  case  it  was  very  poor 
blacksmithing.  Evolution's  way  is  to  take 
every  man  exactly  as  he  is,  and  make  the  best 
of  him  possible  along  his  own  line,  feeling  that 
a  good  heretic  is  better  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  than  to  make  a  good  hiss  with  him  down 


THREE  STAGES  OF  EVOLUTION      63 

in  the  kingdom  of  hell,  and  then  to  integrate 
them  all  somewhere  into  religion's  great 
spiritual  universe.  Who  shall  say  it  is  not  the 
way  along  which  the  whole  of  nature  points 
the  finger? 

Such  are  the  three  great  stages  of  evolu- 
tion, homogeneity,  differentiation  and  integra- 
tion, oneness,  divergence,  and,  on  a  higher 
plane,  oneness  again.  What  flower  ever  had 
a  more  beautiful  unfolding,  what  poem  a  plot 
where  one  thing  opened  more  logically  into 
another  than  this  flower  of  the  universe,  this 
poem  of  all  things?  It  is  not  indeed  an  un- 
broken progress.  It  has  its  degeneracies  and 
dissolutions ;  has  its  long  periods  of  apparent 
going  backward.  But  as  a  whole  it  is  im- 
measurable growth;  shows  in  the  large  that 
through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs. 
It  is  like  the  Bible.  It  opens  with  a  book  of 
Genesis,  and  gives  us  the  long  wandering  in 
the  wilderness,  the  dividing  up  of  the  promised 
land,  the  bloody  reign  of  judges  and  kings, 
and  the  horror  of  the  imprecatory  Psalms ;  but 
it  gives  us,  also,  the  long  line  of  nature's 
prophets,  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
the   vision   of  the   New   Jerusalem. 


IV 

THE  PROOFS  OF  ORGANIC  EVOLUTION 

You  remember  the  old  classic  story  of  how 
Ulysses  after  the  siege  of  Troy  and  his  long 
wanderings  in  many  lands,  proved  himself  on 
his  return  home  to  be  the  rightful  lord  of 
Ithaca  and  the  yet-alive  husband  of  its  beau- 
tiful queen.  Arriving  home  at  a  time  when 
Penelope,  believing  him  to  be  dead,  and  worn 
out  with  a  crowd  of  imperious  suitors,  had 
promised  her  hand,  as  a  means  of  getting  rid 
of  them,  to  the  one  who  would  bend  his  bow 
and  shoot  an  arrow  through  a  line  of  twelve 
rings,  he  appeared  among  them  at  the  trial 
scene  disguised  as  a  beggar,  and  when  their 
pretentious  hands,  one  after  another,  had  failed 
even  to  bend  the  stubborn  arch,  being  allowed 
amid  much  opposition  and  ridicule  to  try  what 
he  could  do,  the  apparent  beggar  having  care- 
fully felt  over  the  weapon  to  make  sure  of  its 
condition  and  selected  one  arrow  from  a  quiver 
the   others   of  which   were  left   for  his   rivals' 

hearts, 

64 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  65 

"Now  sitting  as  he  was,  the  cord  he  drew, 
Thro'  every  ringlet  levelling  his  view, 
Then  notched  the  shaft,  released  and  gave  it  wing; 
The  whizzing  arrow  vanished  from  the  string, 
Sang  on  direct  and  threaded  every  ring," 

showing  him  to  be  the  true  master  by  a  deed 
which  he  alone  of  all  on  earth  was  able  to  do. 

The  story  is  a  good  illustration  of  how  evo- 
lution coming  to  man  after  its  part  in  nature's 
great  struggle  for  existence  and  long  journey- 
ings  through  the  material  universe,  proves  it- 
self to  be  the  rightful  lord  of  philosophy,  and 
properly  entitled  to  the  world's  belief.  Ap- 
pearing in  the  lowly  garb  of  matter  among  the 
pompous  systems  of  theology  and  metaphysics, 
it  has  been  allowed,  only  with  much  opposi- 
tion and  amid  endless  sneers,  to  try  its  hand 
at  that  mighty  cosmic  problem  in  dealing  with 
which  they  have  all  so  signally  failed ;  and  now 
lo,  the  great  master  having  carefully  with 
the  hand  of  science  felt  all  over  its  segment  of 
matter  and  cord  of  force  to  learn  its  condi- 
tion, "draws  the  bow  and  draws  with  ease," 
sending  its  arrow  of  explanation  through  all 
the  myriad  rings  which  nature  has  set  up  from 
circling  atom  and  planet's  orb  and  Milky  Way 
ellipse  on  to  the  farthest  rounds  of  duty,  life 
and  soul. 

Compare  it  in  this  respect  with  some  of  the 


66     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

other  most  noted  claimants  to  the  hand  of  faith. 
Metaphysics  for  ages  has  been  laboring  at 
nature's  Penelopean  test.  What  wrenchings 
of  intellect,  what  mazes  of  logic,  what  platforms 
of  a  priori  reasoning,  what  arrays  of  great 
names, — Plato,  Aristotle,  Kant,  Hegel,  Fichte, 
Spinoza,  Descartes,  Carlyle,  Comte, — have  been 
brought  to  bear  on  its  solution,  and  yet  how 
empty  their  result.  The  genial  Dr.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  tells  the  story  that  having 
got  the  notion  in  the  early  days  of  anaesthetics 
that  the  subjective  mind,  when  under  their  in- 
fluence, might  have  marvels  revealed  to  it,  if 
they  could  only  be  retained,  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  any  ordinary  intellect,  made  arrange- 
ments on  taking  his  first  dose  of  ether,  to 
write  down  as  soon  as  he  should  come  to  con- 
sciousness, before  it  could  be  lost,  whatever  the 
mighty  revelation  might  be.  Inhaling  the  gas 
with  this  in  mind,  as  his  vision  closed  to  all 
earthly  things  the  veil  of  eternity  seemed  to 
be  lifted,  and  the  one  great  truth  which  under- 
lies all  human  experiences,  concentrates  in  itself 
all  wisdom  and  solves  all  the  problems  of  the 
universe,  and  which  all  the  philosophers  of  the 
ages  had  sought  in  vain,  seemed  to  stand  out 
clear  and  distinct  before  his  mind,  and,  with 
returning  consciousness,  staggering  to  his  feet, 
he  hastened  to  secure  in  black  and  white  the 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  67 

precious  all-embracing  sentence.  And  what 
do  you  suppose  it  was?  It  read  thus:  "A 
strong  smell  of  turpentine  prevails  through- 
out." And  that  is  about  the  result  of  the 
labors  of  the  metaphysicians  down  through  all 
the  ages,  in  getting  at  the  secret  of  the  uni- 
verse: "A  strong  smell  of  turpentine  prevails 
throughout." 

Another  set  of  claimants  are  those  of  the- 
ology. One  of  them  is  the  doctrine  that  its 
AlmigluVy  Creator  spoke  it  into  being  all  at  once 
just  as  it  was  six  thousand  years  ago,  took  an 
armful  of  preexisting  nothing  and  said  over 
it,  Let  there  be  a  universe,  and  immediately, 
without  any  secondary  agencies,  a  universe 
there  was.  At  the  close  of  a  lecture  on  the 
geology  of  the  Pacific  Coast  given  in  Portland, 
Oregon,  several  years  ago,  and  illustrated  with 
a  series  of  fossil  bones,  indicating  the  vast  age 
of  the  earth,  an  invitation  was  extended  the 
audience  to  come  up  on  the  platform  and  in- 
spect the  specimens  close  at  hand.  Near  me 
was  an  old  Presbyterian  elder,  as  much  a  fossil 
as  any  of  the  dead  ones  out  of  the  rocks, 
"Oh,"  said  he  contemptuously,  as  we  stood  be- 
fore the  miocene  remains  of  the  ancestor  of  the 
horse,  the  mesohippus,  dug  up  from  a  thou- 
sand feet  below  our  present  soil — "Oh,  the  ab- 
surdity of  a  man's  allowing  his  religious  faith 


68     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

to  be  disturbed  by  these  old  bones !  They  were 
created  by  the  Lord  where  they  were  a  thou- 
sand years  ago,  exactly  as  the  Bible  tells  us ; 
it  was  just  as  easy  for  him,  when  he  spoke, 
to  create  dead  bones  under  the  earth  as  live 
ones  on  its  surface."  I  told  the  lecturer  after- 
wards of  the  remark,  to  which  he  laughingly  re- 
plied :  "Poor  old  man ;  he  might  as  well  go  to 
the  graveyard  yonder,  where  he  will  go  soon, 
and  say  that  the  Lord  created  all  the  bones 
there  just  as  they  are,  instead  of  their  being 
live  ones  first,  as  to  say  it  of  those  in  the 
rocks."  And  so  he  might.  It  is  the  method 
of  magic.  It  belongs  to  the  world  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  not  that  of  Christian  days,  to 
the  platform  of  legerdemain  rather  than  to 
that  of  nature.  Nobody  ever  saw  it  done, 
even  on  the  smallest  scale.  If  the  Bible  teaches 
it,  which  it  hardly  does,  it  was  not  a  matter 
evidently  of  which  the  writer  could  have  had 
any  personal  knowledge.  And  with  it  em- 
bodied in  persons  like  that  old  Presbyterian 
elder,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Penelope  of 
faith  should  have  regarded  it  as  hardly  a  fit 
suitor  for  her  hand  and  heart?  Another  theo- 
logical claimant  is  that  of  the  universe's  divine 
manufacture,  taking  its  eternally  preexistent 
raw  material  and  putting  it  together  part  by 
part,  as  a  carpenter  does  a  house.     It  is  the 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  69 

theory  of  it  which  Milton  so  graphically  de- 
scribes in  "Paradise  Lost."     He  took 

"The  golden  compasses  to  circumscribe 
This  universe  and  all  created  things. 
One  foot  he  centered,  and  the  other  turned 
Round  through  the  vast  profundity  obscure 
Till  earth  self-balanced  on  her  center  hung." 

And  when  he  came  to  its  living  creatures,  he 
is  thought  to  have  made  out  of  the  dust  the 
first  pair  of  each  species  full  grown  and  com- 
plete. 

"The  grassy  clods  now  calved  and  half  appeared 
The  tawny  lion  pawing  to  get  free 
His  hinder  parts,  then  springs  as  burst  from  bonds 
And  rampant  shakes  his  brindled  mane." 

It  is  a  picture  so  ludicrous  that  it  is  wonderful 
how  men  like  Agassiz  and  Cuvier  and  Linneus 
and  others  familiar  with  the  ordinary  processes 
of  nature  could  ever  believe  in  it  as  true  to  life. 
Nobody  ever  saw  the  faintest  inkling  of  such 
a  thing  in  the  real  world.  And  while  the  doc- 
trine of  it  as  having  occurred  "once  on  a  time," 
like  the  stories  we  tell  children,  may  do  well 
enough  for  the  long  bow  of  fiction,  it  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  deserving  a  place  in  the 
solid  one  of  fact. 


70     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Turning  now  to  evolution  as  a  theory  of 
the  universe,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the 
proofs  with  which  it  begins,  the  first  rings  it 
puts  its  arrow  of  explanation  through  are 
not  those  of  a  far-off  nebula, — but  of  close-at- 
hand,  every-day  objects.  There  are  multi- 
tudes of  things  all  around  us — indeed  the 
woods  and  sea  and  land  are  full  of  them — 
in  which  we  can  see  its  whole  process  going  on 
directly  before  our  e}^es.  The  plant  comes  out 
of  a  seed,  and  that  seed  from  some  other,  and 
so  on  as  far  back  as  we  have  any  knowledge  of 
plants  at  all,  each  as  the  result  of  its  own 
inherent  force  and  law.  The  grassy  plains  do 
not  now  calve,  but  the  animals  themselves,  and 
their  ancestors,  and  so  on  generation  after 
generation  up  the  steeps  of  time.  When  the  boy 
becomes  a  man,  it  is  not  by  having  the  boy 
die  out  of  him  and  a  man  created  and  put  in 
his  place,  but  by  the  natural  unfolding  of  boy- 
hood into  manhood.  And  when  we  wake  up  in 
the  morning  and  see  a  world  around  us  differ- 
ent in  some  of  its  aspects  from  any  we  have 
ever  seen  before,  no  one,  not  even  a  Presbyterian 
elder,  is  so  simple  as  to  think  that  sometime 
during  the  night  it  was  spoken  into  existence 
by  the  Almighty  just  as  it  is, — pantaloons, 
watch,  primitive  fields  and  himself,  or  that  it 
did  otherwise  than  unfold  naturally  out  of  what 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  71 

the  world  was  on  all  its  preceding  days. 
Such  facts  as  these  are  of  immense  significance. 
They  show  that  evolution  is  not  a  mere  phil- 
osophical theory  of  the  scholar,  but  an  actual 
working  process  of  nature  itself,  something 
which  is  in  part  true  at  any  rate ;  and  with 
everything  in  our  sight  going  on  now  under  its 
law,  it  is  at  least  a  fair  presumption  that  things 
always  and  everywhere  have  been  done  in  the 
same  way. 

But,  while  it  is  undeniable  that  individuals 
and  things  right  around  us  originate  thus  from 
their  predecessors,  it  is  said  that  even  with 
such  a  starting  point,  the  presumption  is  too 
great  that  worlds  and  life  and  species  and  es- 
pecially man  with  his  body,  mind,  and  soul,  all 
so  different  from  each  other  and  those  we  have 
actual  knowledge  of,  could  have  originated  in 
that  way,  or  otherwise  than  directly  from  the 
Deity's  own  creative  hand.  It  is  here  that  the 
struggle  against  evolution  is  most  fiercely  car- 
ried on.  Even  with  regard  to  such  things, 
however,  though  we  cannot  see  the  whole  proc- 
ess going  on,  as  we  can  with  the  others,  there 
are  a  multitude  of  equally  solid  facts  acting 
with  the  presumption  that  we  can  see  equally 
all  around  us,  and  it  is  on  these,  as  on  the 
measured  base  line  from  which  the  surveyor 
gets  the  dimensions  of  a  mountain  peak  he  can- 


72     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

not  bodily  climb  to,  that  the  evolutionist  plants 
himself  to  get  his  knowledge  of  origins  up  the 
steeps  of  time  which  are  beyond  his  visual 
reach. 

First,  as  regards  the  origin  from  a  common 
stock  of  the  world's  different  species  of  animals 
and  plants,  we  have  right  before  our  eyes 
the  beginnings  of  such  a  process.  Every 
mother  who  has  had  two  children,  has  had  two 
varieties  of  human  beings  who,  along  with  their 
resemblances,  have  differed  somewhat  from  her, 
and  the  father,  and  from  each  other  in  features, 
temper,  talent,  taste, — almost  every  quality  of 
body,  mind  and  soul;  has  had,  therefore,  two 
incipient  species.  Every  orchard  and  farm- 
yard is  filled  with  like  illustrations  of  what 
nature  is  continually  doing  to  originate  dif- 
ferences out  of  the  same  stock,  even  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  generation.  And  though 
the  differences  may  be  very  slight  at  the  start, 
as  with  railroads  running  from  the  same  depot, 
nevertheless  how  wide  they  will  become  even 
within  the  limits  of  history,  the  old  Bible  story 
of  the  two  nations  which  sprang  from  the 
twins,  Esau  and  Jacob,  is  evidence, — enough, 
surely,  when  the  diverging  began,  some  of  it, 
millions  of  years  before  history,  to  account 
for  the  world's  present  myriad  diverse  species. 

Then,    wide    apart    as    the    existing    species 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  73 

may  be  at  their  extremes,  man  and  monad,  for 
instance,  there  is  between  them  a  regular 
series  of  connecting  links  and  especially  of 
structural  resemblances, — homologies,  as  they 
are  called,  which  make  it  as  easy  as  going  up- 
stairs, for  the  one  to  have  arisen  from  the  an- 
cestors of  the  other.  As  Emerson  prophet- 
ically wrote, 

"A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings, 
And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  up  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

They  all  alike,  whether  animals  or  vegetables, 
are  endowed  with  the  same  great  mystery  of 
life, — all  alike  are  born  and  eat  and  reproduce 
and  grow  old  and  die.  Lordly  man  shares  his 
backbone  and  heart  and  muscles  and  brain  with 
the  pig,  the  monkey,  the  lizard  and  the  fish. 
Creatures  as  wide  apart  as  the  whale,  the 
quadruped  and  the  bird,  have  either  rudimen- 
tally  or  fully  developed  their  double  lungs  and 
four  limbs  and  warm  blood;  and  even  in  the 
realms  of  mind  and  soul,  fear,  hate,  love,  cu- 
riosity and  conscience,  rising  to  their  climax  in 
humanity,  rest  their  base  on  the  brute.  Not  cre- 
ation, but  modification  is  everywhere  Nature's 
law.  When  wings  are  wanted  for  a  bird,  she 
does  not  make  them  outright,  but,  like  a  thrifty 


74     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

woman  with  a  last  year's  bonnet,  refashions 
them  out  of  an  old  reptile's  forelegs ;  or  even  a 
place  in  which  to  hold  a  human  brain,  she 
does  not  build  a  fresh  skull,  but,  like  a  wise 
mother  with  a  growing  girl,  simply  lets  out  the 
tucks  from  the  top  of  a  monkey's  backbone. 
Ladies  would  be  surprised  to  know  what  some 
of  the  most  apparently  distinctive  charms  they 
are  so  proud  of  are  vamped  over  from,  in  the 
anatomy  of  their  despised  lower  relatives. 
The  rounded  cheeks  of  children  thought  to  aline 
them  with  cherubs,  and  so  conspicuous  in  Ra- 
phael's pictures,  are  really  a  connecting  link  be- 
tween them  and  a  species  of  ape,  where  they 
are  used  as  the  places  in  which  to  stuff  food. 
And,  with  so  many  known  cases  in  which  the 
organs  of  one  species  are  made  from  those  of 
another,  how  direct  the  inference  that  species 
themselves  are  but  the  varied  outgrowths  of 
one  primitive  protoplasmic  life. 

It  is  an  inference  derived  from  surface  facts, 
which  is  confirmed  most  strikingly  by  the 
deeper  ones  of  paleontology.  The  rocks  of  the 
earth  are  a  mighty,  many-paged  volume  in 
which  are  printed  and  pictured,  by  the  animals 
and  plants  themselves,  a  history  of  their  growth 
into  species,  genera,  orders,  and  the  like,  be- 
ginning, as  under  evolution  ought  to  be  the 
case,   with   those   which  were   the  most   simple 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  75 

and  protoplasmic,  and  branching  out  as  we  go 
up,  like  the  limbs  of  a  tree,  into  those  which  are 
on  the  page  that  is  being  written  to-day.  A 
few  years  ago,  while  a  party  of  scientists  were 
exploring  the  ruins  of  ancient  Nineveh,  they 
came  across  a  brick  on  which  was  the  print  of 
a  dog's  foot,  evidently  made  there  three  thou- 
sand years  before  by  his  stepping  on  it  when 
the  soft  clay  was  laid  out  in  the  sun  to  dry, 
another  brick  very  possibly  being  thrown  at 
him  for  his  mischief.  Since  then  vast  empires 
have  risen,  and  kings  and  statesmen  and  war- 
riors and  scholars  without  number  have  written 
their  names  on  the  scroll  of  fame  only  to  have 
how  many  of  them  fade  into  oblivion ;  the 
mighty  Nineveh  itself  has  risen  to  glory  and 
perished  ;  but  what  a  satire  on  human  renown  ; — 
the  mark  made  by  that  little  dog  remains  a 
memorial  of  himself  as  clear-cut  to-day  as 
when  he  signed  it  in  that  far-off  age.  So 
when  nature  was  building  this  great  city  that 
we  call  earth,  her  animals  were  continually 
treading  on  its  soft  clay,  or  getting  their  whole 
bodies  entombed  in  its  mud ;  and  what  ages, 
what  empires,  what  religions  they  have  sur- 
vived, to  tell  us,  as  no  logic  could,  evolution's 
splendid  truth.  The  Connecticut  Valley  is  full 
of  such  prints,  varying  in  their  length  from 
one  inch  to  eighteen,  and  in  their  stride,  from 


76     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

half  a  foot  to  three  yards.  When  I  was  in 
college,  they  had  just  been  investigated  by 
President  Hitchcock,  and  were  thought  by  him 
to  be  those  of  birds  and  classified  as  such. 
But  other  geologists  doubted.  The  sandstone 
belonged  to  a  period  that  was  too  early  for 
birds.  Moreover,  it  was  found  that  some  of 
them  had  left  the  marks  of  tails  dragged  be- 
hind them,  a  most  remarkable  thing  for  ani- 
mals which  had  no  such  appendage.  So  the 
controversy  ran  high;  and  it  was  never  settled 
till  Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species"  was  published, 
when  it  was  found  that  both  sides  were  right,  the 
tracks  having  been  made  just  as  some  of  the 
old  reptiles  were  evolving  into  birds,  and  pos- 
sessed, therefore,  some  of  the  characteristics 
of  each,  reptilian  tails  and  avian  feet, — a 
splendid  instance  of  how  one  higher  truth  will 
often  reconcile  the  contradictions  of  two  op- 
posing half  truths.  The  rocks  are  crammed 
with  such  connecting  links,  branches  of  life's 
tree,  separate  above  ground  which  underneath 
unite  in  ever  fewer  and  fewer  limbs ;  and 
though  some  needed  ones  are  yet  missing,  new 
ones  are  being  found  every  year,  and  enough 
already  exist  to  make  a  chain  capable  by  it- 
self alone  of  holding  up  the  whole  truth  of 
Darwinian   evolution. 

It  is  not  in  the  rocks  alone,  however,  with 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  77 

their  dead  forms  that  we  find  such  a  chain, 
but  also  in  the  animal  nature  itself,  a  similar 
one  made  up  of  living  links,  that  upholds  the 
same  great  truth.  It  is  a  most  interesting 
and  astounding  fact  that  each  individual  of  a 
species  including  even  man,  repeats  hastily  in 
its  own  growth,  some  before  birth  and  some 
afterwards,  a  series  of  all  the  forms  along  its 
own  line  that  are  below  it  in  the  scale  of  being. 
Nature  seems  to  believe  very  strongly  in  re- 
views, and  so,  at  the  beginning  of  each  new 
term  of  her  school,  makes  the  pupil  spend  the 
first  weeks  before  taking  up  any  new  studies,  in 
running  over  everything  from  a,  b,  c,  up,  that 
as  advance  work  she  had  been  ages  upon.  The 
simplest  and  probably  the  earliest  form  of  life 
that  appeared  on  earth,  was  a  single  proto- 
plasmic cell,  and  it  is  as  such  that  every  crea- 
ture, Socrates  and  Shakespeare,  amoeba  and 
ascidium  makes  his  start  to-day.  Organization 
begins  now,  as  doubtless  it  did  at  first,  with  the 
folding  over  of  a  layer  of  cells  into  a  minute 
sac,  the  gastra?a  stage,  and  it  is  in  such  a 
sac  that  every  child  of  nature's  school  above 
the  cell,  no  matter  where  he  is  going  to  gradu- 
ate, has  for  awhile  to  carry  his  luncheon,  his 
eye-glasses  and  also  his  brains.  It  is  a  fishy 
story,  but  not  less  a  scientifically  true  one,  that 
all  vertebrates,  no  matter  how  much  they  after- 


78      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

wards  live  on  the  land  and  dread  the  water, 
even  the  small  boy,  pass  through  an  embryonic 
period  of  having  gills  and  being  able  to  live 
only  in  a  fluid  environment.  Each  of  the 
upper  classes,  however  select  the  society  it  is 
going  to  confine  itself  to  after  birth,  not  ex- 
cepting a  college  fraternity,  has  its  time  of 
being  only  a  reptile  and  amphibian.  And  if 
an  examination  is  made  at  the  age  of  four 
weeks,  not  even  the  smartest  scientific  com- 
mitteeman can  find  any  difference  in  form  or 
faculty  between  a  bird,  a  dog,  a  tortoise  and 
a  man.  The  lower  animals  when  they  come  to 
their  species,  graduate  out  into  the  world,  that 
is,  are  born,  but  those  which  are  destined  for 
a  higher  rank,  like  the  pupils  in  a  college,  keep 
on  through  the  upper  grades,  and  even  after 
they  are  born  take  a  sort  of  resident  graduate 
course,  during  which  some  of  the  topmost 
stages  are  passed  through.  It  is  such  ones 
that  we  do  not  have  to  go  into  any  ghastly 
dissecting  room  to  see,  but  that  are  beautifully 
visible  in  the  great  living-room  of  nature.  I 
was  in  a  lady's  parlor  a  while  ago,  where  on 
the  center  table  was  a  glass  basin  in  which  a 
tadpole  was  evolving  from  a  fish  into  a  frog, 
as  refined  and  nice  as  the  unfolding  of  a  bud 
into  a  flower.  Who  has  not  watched  with 
wonder  the   blossoming  of  a  lowly  worm   into 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  79 

one  of  those  winged  flowers  we  call  butterflies? 
There  are  good  scientific  reasons  for  the  epithet 
so  often  applied  to  the  small  boy,  "You  little 
monkey,"  that  being  exactly  the  post  embry- 
onic stage  at  which  he  has  arrived;  and  every 
mother  who  holds  in  her  arms  a  child,  holds 
there  a  little  animal  that  she  is  to  see  continue 
right  along  the  process  that  was  begun  before 
birth,  and  stage  by  stage  unfold  through  the 
PuPPy>  tne  tiger,  the  ape  and  the  savage  up 
at  last  into  the  man. 

What  does  all  this  mean, — what  its  cause? 
Why,  it  is  simply  a  phase  of  heredity,  the  off- 
spring's inheriting  the  peculiarities  of  its  an- 
cestry,— there  is  no  other  explanation  of  it; 
but  just  as  certainly  as  the  unfolding  likeness 
of  a  child  to  its  parents  and  its  grandparents 
shows  its  descent  from  them,  just  so  certainly 
its  unfolding  likeness  to  the  various  species  of 
animals  one  after  another,  its  ontological  par- 
ents and  grandparents,  proves  its  descent  from 
their  loins.  It  is  the  genealogical  table  in  the 
great  Bible  of  nature  written  afresh  in  each 
copy  by  the  patriarch  species  themselves,  reach- 
ing, less  divine,  less  certain  than  the  genea- 
logical graves,  corresponding  microscopically 
with  the  record  there  which  is  written  out  in 
full  length ;  and  who  will  say  it  is  less  interest- 
ing,  less    divine,   less    certain    than    the   genea- 


80      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

logical    tables    that    we    find    on    the    printed 
Hebrew  page? 

Nor  is  this  all.  Every  animal  not  only 
passes  in  its  growth  through  all  the  stages  that 
its  ancestry  has  passed  through,  but  retains, 
also,  in  its  own  form,  remnants  here  and  there  of 
what  they  were ;  has  in  it  a  living  paleontology 
corresponding  with  the  fossil  one  that  is  found 
in  the  rocks ;  splint  bones  to  the  horse  which 
are  simply  shriveled-up  toes  whose  diminishing 
can  be  traced  right  down  through  five  different 
species ;  rudimentary  teeth  and  hairs  and  pelvic 
bones  in  whales ;  suppressed  hind  legs  in  snakes ; 
a  mingling  of  the  convex  and  concave  vertebra? 
of  reptiles  and  birds  in  the  old  connecting  links 
between  them ;  gill  arches  in  lizards ;  and  in 
man,  over  fifty  such  things,  some  of  them,  as 
the  caecal  appendage  to  the  intestines,  not  only 
useless,  but  often  of  great  harm, — now  and 
then,  also,  single  animals  that  have  atavistic 
marks  which  belong  to  others  widely  different, 
as  horses  with  zebra  stripes,  and  human  beings 
with  the  extra  fingers  and  toes  of  far-off  am- 
phibian forms.  Who  can  believe  that  an  Al- 
mighty Being  making  his  creatures  all  at  once 
out  of  new  material  would  have  mixed  in  them 
these  resemblances  of  other  creatures?  Are 
they  not  rather  the  very  things  we  ought  to 
find    under    the   view   that   the   organs    of   one 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  81 

species  are  modified  to  make  those  of  others, 
and  not  yet  wholly  shriveled  up  by  disuse? 
When  a  white  man  was  captured  by  the  Indians 
in  the  early  wars  of  our  country  and  carried 
off  into  the  wilderness,  his  way  of  marking  the 
trail  so  that  it  could  be  followed,  was  to  leave 
behind  here  and  there  an  old  shoe,  or  a  frag- 
ment of  dress,  or  the  broken  branch  of  a  tree ; 
and  pioneer  scouts  became  very  skilful  in  fol- 
lowing such  trails  and  capturing  the  captive 
back.  And  that  is  what  nature  has  done  in  her 
long  journey  from  monad  up  to  man,  she  has 
left  old  shoes  and  bits  of  dress  and  broken  twigs 
at  each  camp  along  the  way,  and  evolution  adds 
to  all  its  other  proofs  of  being  on  the  right 
trail,  by  simply  going  after  her  and  picking 
them  up. 

When  Ulysses  made  his  famous  archery  con- 
test at  the  court  of  Ithaca,  having  once  let  the 
arrow  fly  from  the  twanging  bow,  it  had,  of 
course,  to  go  through  all  the  rings  at  once 
under  its  single  impulse,  without  any  stopping 
to  be  shot  again,  or  let  the  spectators  rest. 
But  the  rings  of  nature  that  evolution  has  to 
shoot  its  arrow  through  are  more  than  twelve, 
and  I  must  leave  those  which  are  beyond  the 
range  of  species — such  as  life,  mind,  society, 
religion  and  the  inorganic  world,  to  be  tried 
for  in   another   lecture.     In   closing  the  work 


82     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

already  attempted,  however,  let  me  call  at- 
tention to  the  wonderful  way  in  which  the 
proofs  reenforce  each  other  and  make  a  united 
whole.  The  first  consists  in  showing  that 
throughout  the  organic  world,  as  it  now  is, 
there  is  a  regular  gradation  of  species,  both 
those  of  animals  and  plants,  from  the  lowest  up 
to  the  highest,  and  multitudes  of  cases  in  which 
the  organs  of  the  one  are  simply  modifications 
of  those  which  are  in  the  others.  This  is  the 
classification  argument.  The  second  consists  in 
showing  that  the  remains  of  animals  and  plants 
found  in  rocks,  constitute,  in  a  general  way,  a 
similar  series  unfolding  from  the  lowest  up, 
ever  nearer  and  nearer,  into  the  ones  that  we 
have  on  earth  to-day.  This  is  the  paleonto- 
logical  or  phylogenetic  argument,  and,  as  you 
see,  greatly  strengthens  the  other.  But  these 
proofs,  though  they  show  the  grades,  neither 
of  them  shows  one  grade  actually  producing  the 
other,  and  so  with  these  alone  it  might  still  be 
said  that  the  Creator  simply  made  the  parents 
of  each  species  a  separate  pair.  To  answer 
this  we  have  the  third  argument,  derived  from 
embi^ology,  showing  in  the  growth  of  each  in- 
dividual animal  a  repetition  on  a  small  scale, 
and  in  a  few  weeks  of  the  process  by  which  the 
organic  world  at  large,  and  through  long  ages, 
was  produced,  and,  what  is  more,  showing  one 


ORGANIC  EVOLUTION  83 

species  actually  producing  that  above  it  which 
is  next  in  order.  This  is  the  ontogenetic  ar- 
gument. And  then,  binding  all  the  rest  to- 
gether, we  have  the  remnants  of  organs  in  the 
higher  species  of  each  series,  the  living,  the 
geological,  and  the  embryo  one,  that  were  of 
great  use  in  some  lower  species,  but  are  of  no 
service  now.  This  is  the  rudimentary  argument. 
The  Bible  tells  us  that  a  threefold  cord  cannot 
be  broken,  but  here  is  a  fourfold  cord.  How 
could  anything  be  more  finely  knit  together? 
It  is  not  customary  to  speak  of  logic  as  a  thing 
of  beauty.  It  is  ordinarily  regarded  as  in- 
congruous as  it  was  for  the  medical  student  to 
invite  his  lady-love  to  go  with  him  not  to  the 
theater,  but  to  the  most  lovely  opening  of  a 
cadaver  that  was  to  come  off  the  same  night  in 
the  dissecting-room.  But  if  there  ever  was  a 
real  masculine  Apollo  Belvidere  piece  of  illa- 
tive grace,  is  it  not  the  one  you  have  looked  at 
in  this  survey?  And  so  far  as  the  organic 
world  is  concerned,  shall  we  not  say  that  the 
wielder  of  its  bow  and  arrow,  the  Ulysses  of 
evolution,  is  worthy  of  having  at  our  hands 
the  Penelope  of  faith? 


EVIDENCE  OF  INORGANIC  EVOLUTION 

There  are  doubtless  many  who  have  accepted 
evolution  from  the  start,  and  to  whom  all  fur- 
ther efforts  to  prove  its  truth  are  as  much  a 
work  of  supererogation  as  arguments  would  be 
to  convince  them  that  the  sun  shines  or  the 
earth  revolves.  But  such  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case  with  all,  even  intelligent  people. 
I  have  before  me  the  report  of  a  sermon  re- 
cently delivered  in  Boston,  the  preacher  of 
which  says,  "If  evolution  is  true,  then  the 
Bible  is  not  true,  and  God  did  not  make  man 
in  his  own  image  holy,  and  hence  man  never 
fell,  and  Jesus  Christ  is  of  no  use."  There  are 
multitudes  of  respectable  families  who  still  have 
the  old  idea  that  evolution  gives  them  a  very 
much  despised  ancestry — is  a  theory  liable  to 
explode  their  human  origin,  and  with  which  it 
is  just  as  well  not  to  be  caught  monkeying. 

Most  of  these  disbelievers  are  encased  in  such 
Harveyized  steel  plates  of  prejudice,  that  no 
proof,  even  though  it  came  at  them  with  the 
84 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  85 

force  of  a  sixtcen-inch  solid,  shot  from  a  thirty- 
foot  dynamite  gun,  would  knock  into  them  a 
conviction, — are  like  some  Protestants  in  their 
relation  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church;  so  ab- 
solutely sure  its  adherents  are  of  the  Evil  One, 
that  if  they  should  get  into  heaven  and  find 
them  there,  too,  they  would  feel  at  once,  in 
spite  of  golden  streets  and  angel  songs,  that 
by  some  awful  mistake  on  the  part  of  the 
Almighty  they  had  got  into  the  wrong  city, 
and  with  all  possible  speed  would  hurry  out  of 
it  into  the  other  place. 

But  there  are  many  others  impressed  in  a 
general  way  with  its  truth,  who  would  like  to 
have  their  faith  in  it  clarified  and  strengthened, 
and  would  like,  especially  to  have  its  consist- 
ency with  their  religious  belief  made  plain. 
As  regards  those  who  from  the  first  have  been 
its  confirmed  adherents,  I  doubt  not,  as  to  me, 
the  whole  thing,  proof  and  what  is  proved,  is 
a  grand  poem,  a  majestic  hymn  of  creation, 
something  not  merely  to  be  gone  through  with 
once  and  then  laid  aside,  but  to  be  enjoyed 
over  and  over  a  hundred  times,  each  time  re- 
vealing new  meanings  between  the  lines,  and 
each  line  a  new  sweetness  in  itself, 

My  preceding  lecture  was  devoted  to  its 
evidence,  as  the  process  by  which  the  different 
species  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms 


86     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

were  originated  from  a  common  homogeneous 
root. 

It  seemed  best  to  take  up  these  evidences  of 
organic  evolution  to  start  with,  because  their 
field  is  the  one  in  which  they  are  the  most  con- 
clusive and  the  most  unitedly  applied,  and 
because  it  affords  the  best  vantage-ground  from 
which  to  go  on  into  more  difficult  realms.  It 
is  a  field  which  is  associated  forever  with  the 
great  name  of  Darwin,  and  so  brilliant  was  his 
exposition  of  it,  that  to  many  persons,  even  now, 
it  is  the  whole  thing,  and  he  its  whole  discoverer. 
But,  as  needs  to  be  emphasized  over  and  over, 
the  organic  world  with  all  its  importance  is 
only  one  of  its  departments,  and  Darwin  with 
all  his  greatness,  the  highest  name  in  only  a 
part  of  its  calendar.  Evolution  is  cosmic,  in- 
cludes all  worlds,  has  as  its  supreme  and 
earliest  expositor  the  splendid  name  of  Herbert 
Spencer.  Proceeding  now  to  this  larger  field 
I  shall  try  to  show  that  its  proofs,  though  more 
fragmentary  in  their  application,  are  of  the 
same  kind  and  force  as  those  which  are  so 
cogent  with  respect  to  Darwinian  evolution. 

First,  as  regards  the  raw  material  of  the  in- 
organic world,  there  are  many  curious  facts 
about  the  chemical  elements,  so  called,  which 
render  a  common  source  highly  probable. 
Their  atomic  weights  mount  up  from  the  1  of 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  87 

hydrogen  to  the  240  of  uranium  in  a  series, 
each  member  of  which  is  approximately  a  mul- 
tiple of  half  that  of  hydrogen,  as  if  somehow 
the  unknown  substance  to  which  that  half  be- 
longs was  their  one  starting  point.  They  do 
not  succeed  each  other  in  their  chemical 
qualities,  individually,  right  along  from  one  to 
sixty-seven,  but  are  divisible  into  ten  or  eleven 
groups,  as  copper,  silver  and  gold,  iron,  nickel 
and  cobalt,  fluorine,  chlorine,  bromine  and 
iodine,  in  each  of  which  the  chemical  qualities 
succeed  each  other  regularly  for  awhile,  and 
then  begin  with  similar  ones  over  again,  the 
groups  rising  one  above  another,  and  the  first 
element  in  each  corresponding  in  its  qualities 
with  all  the  other  firsts,  the  second  with  the 
seconds,  and  so  on.  They  are  like  the  octaves 
in  music,  where  after  each  seven  notes  there 
comes  the  eighth  which  harmonizes  with  the  first 
on  a  new  scale, — are  like  the  classes  of  the 
animal  world  where  the  flying  fish,  the  bat  and 
the  bird,  though  belonging  in  their  homologous 
structure  to  entirely  different  groups,  resem- 
ble each  other  in  their  special  wing-like  ap- 
pendages ;  copper,  for  instance,  being  related 
to  silver  and  gold  as  one  fish  is  to  another,  but 
to  iron  and  fluorine  as  the  flying  fish  is  to  the 
bat  and  the  bird;  and  very  significantly  are 
in  the  same  way  like  the  vibrations  of  ether, 


88      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

which  divide  its  common  substance  up  into  the 
known  groups  of  actinic,  light,  and  heat  rays, 
while  the  Roentgen  ray  is  most  probably  one 
simply  of  another  group, — all  indicating  that 
even  the  raw  material  of  this  old  world  of  ours, 
apparently  so  full  of  discord,  is  set  to  music; 
sure,  therefore,  at  last  in  its  completed  struc- 
ture to  beat  itself  into  harmony.  And  that 
such  a  rythmic  grouping,  so  far  as  its  chemical 
elements  are  concerned,  is  not  a  mere  fancy,  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  Mendelejeff,  who  first 
pointed  it  out,  was  able  to  predict  from  the 
vacant  places  in  its  tables  for  which  there  were 
then  no  known  elements,  that  new  ones  to  fill 
them  would  eventually  be  found  and  what  their 
characteristics  would  be ;  a  prediction  which  has 
already  been  fulfilled  with  regard  to  two  of 
them  by  the  discovery  of  gallium  and  germa- 
nium each  with  the  very  qualities  the  vacant 
places  required,  a  discovery  in  chemistry  which 
parallels  that  of  Neptune  in  astronomy  and 
those  that  Cuvier  foretold  in  zoology.  A  large 
part  of  the  chemist's  difficulty  in  reducing  these 
elements  all  to  a  common  base,  seems  to  arise 
from  a  lack  on  earth  of  sufficient  heat,  just  as 
in  the  Arctic  regions  would  be  the  case  with 
steam,  water  and  ice.  But  in  the  brighter  stars 
there  is  no  such  difficulty,  their  temperature 
being  vastly  above  anything  that  a  theologian 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  89 

ever  conceived  of  as  necessary  to  reduce  even 
sin  to  holiness ;  and  very  singularly  the  spec- 
trum of  the  most  brilliant  orbs  shows  only  one 
element,  hydrogen,  while  that  of  the  red  and 
parti-colored  ones,  which  are  the  least  hot, 
shows  the  other  elements  in  continually  in- 
creasing numbers,  thus  suggesting  that  the 
same  cooling  process  which  is  evolving  the 
original  cosmic  fire-mist  into  worlds,  is  evolving 
out  of  it  the  varied  chemical  elements  which 
later  on  are  to  play  such  an  important  part  in 
rendering  at  least  some  of  these  worlds  fit  places 
for  habitation,  and  in  providing  for  their  in- 
habitants the  fit  garb  of  life.  So  beautiful  and 
far-reaching  from  the  start  are  nature's  laws, 
so  much  more  wonderful  than  any  magical 
creation  out  of  nothing,  evolution's  way  of 
providing  nature  with  even  its  raw  material. 
And  as  an  indication  of  what  the  human  mind 
is  capable  of,  and  of  the  unseen  universe  in 
which  science  not  less  than  religion  is  at  work, 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  these  marvelous  de- 
ductions are  made  by  dealing  with  particles  of 
matter  some  of  which  are  less  than  one  five- 
hundred  millionth  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  that 
a  cubical  box  a  thousandth  of  an  inch  in  thick- 
ness would  contain  more  than  seventy  thousand 
millions  of  them ;  that  magnified  in  the  propor- 
tion of  a  pea  to  this  whole  planet  they  would 


90     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

be  only  the  size  of  a  grape ;  that  they  are  two 
hundred  thousand  times  smaller  than  anything 
the   most   powerful  microscope  ever  made  has 
rendered  visible ;  that  even  if  a  microscope  were 
invented  capable  of  magnifying  them  to  a  vis- 
ible  size,  they  are  moving  back  and  forth  so 
rapidly,  some  of  the  gaseous  ones  at  the  rate 
of  a  mile  a  second,  which  thus  magnified  would 
be    two    hundred    thousand    miles    a    second, 
that     no     human     eye     could     follow     them; 
that    even    though    it    could,    their    nature    is 
so    contradictory   of   everything   known   about 
matter    in    the    mass,    that    when    they    com- 
bine   chemically,    one    so    exactly    occupies    the 
space  of  the  other  as  entirely  to  disappear,  as 
much   so    as   if   when    a   policeman   overtook   a 
thief,  he  should  be  so  completely  absorbed  by 
him, — clothes,    club,    badge    and    body,    there 
would  be  only  one  person  left,  and  he  neither 
policeman   nor   thief,   but   possibly   the    citizen 
robbed,  or  the  judge  on  the  bench.     What  need 
of  children's  brownies,  or  of  Alice's  Wonder- 
land,  when   evolution    as    a   part    of   its    sober 
scientific  equipment  gives  us  figures  and  facts 
such  as  these? 

Passing  from  the  little  to  the  large,  we  have 
as  regards  the  evolutionary  origin  of  the  earth, 
the  same  kind  of  proof  that  paleontology 
affords   with   regard   to   that  of  species.     Its 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  91 

strata  not  only  contain  the  fossils  of  animals 
and  plants  graded  one  above  another  into  those 
which  now  exist,  but  the  rocks  themselves  are 
fossils,  fossil  worlds  graded  one  above  another 
till  their  summit  is  the  one  which  is  now  a-top. 
Each  of  them,  so  dead,  so  dark,  so  buried  in 
eternal  silence  to-day,  was  once  a  realm  at  the 
surface,  played  over  by  the  waters,  danced  on 
by  the  winds,  brightened  by  the  sunshine  and 
alive  with  ten  thousand  joyous  things;  each  a 
fulfilment  of  Emerson's  words, 

"When  the  old  world  is  sterile 
And  the  ages  are  effete, 
He  will  from  wrecks  and  sediment 
A  finer  world  complete." 


And  as  we  go  back  through  the  wrecks  and 
sediment  we  find  their  appointments,  the  same 
as  their  inhabitants,  growing  more  and  more 
primitive  till  they  end  in  one  which  shows 
beyond  question 

"The  solid  earth  whereon  we  stand 
In  tracts  of  fluent  heat  began." 

The  first  geologists  explained  its  changes  as 
all  the  result  of  tremendous  convulsions  which 
destroyed  one  after  another  its  old  formations, 
and  opened  the  way  for  a  supernatural  power 
to  come  in,  and  make  in  each  new  one  all  things 


92     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

new.  Convulsions  there  were, — earthquake 
shocks  that  rent  its  crust  into  faults,  like  that 
along  the  Appalachian  Mountains,  five  miles 
up  and  down  and  hundreds  of  miles  in  length; 
volcanic  outbursts,  like  that  on  the  west  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  which  covered  what  is  now 
whole  states  with  ashes  hundreds  of  feet  deep; 
and  elemental  battlefields  in  which  the  oppo- 
nents like  Milton's  angels  plucked  up  crested 
hills  and  used  them  as  the  missiles  of  their  awful 
fight.  But  since  the  studies  of  Lyell  it  has  been 
recognized  that  the  same  slow  agencies  that 
are  at  work  on  the  earth  now,  have  also  always 
been  at  work,  and  that  the  two  together  are 
fully  adequate  to  account  naturally  for  all 
geologic  changes.  Coarse  and  blundering  as  the 
shapers  of  a  world  do  indeed  seem, — the  fingers 
of  the  earthquake,  the  volcano,  and  the  glacier 
and  hardly  less  so  those  of  the  frost,  the  rain, 
and  the  air, — no  sculptor's  chisel  or  house- 
wife's hands  ever  left  traces  of  greater  skill 
behind  them  than  they  have  in  carving  and 
ordering  the  earth.  Man  has  stored  up  books 
in  libraries,  but  geologists  tell  us  of  long  ages 
before  books,  during  which  these  blind  natural 
forces  stored  up  the  oil  by  whose  light  the  far- 
off  coming  eyes  were  to  read  their  words.  The 
earth's  surface,  when  it  cooled  down  from  its 
molten   state,   was    richly   provided   with   iron, 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  93 

but  it  was  in  the  form  of  a  red  oxide  so  minutely 
scattered  and  mixed  up  with  the  soil,  just  as 
we  see  it  now  wherever  red  earth  is,  that  for 
man  alone  to  get  it  out  would  have  made  it 
rarer  and  costlier  than  even  silver  and  gold. 
Its  red  oxide  is  insoluble  in  water,  but  among 
the  earth's  earlier  products  was  a  coarse  vege- 
tation, which  dying  and  mingling  with  it  in  the 
soil  furnished  the  carbon  whose  greater  affinity 
for  oxygen  took  away  a  part  of  it  from  the  iron, 
and  thus  changed  it  to  a  black  oxide  in  which 
condition  it  is  soluble  in  acidulated  water,  the 
oxygenized  carbon  providing  at  the  same  time 
the  needed  acid.  In  this  form  it  was  taken  up 
by  the  rains  and  floods  and  carried  into  ponds 
and  bogs  where,  away  from  the  carbon,  it  took 
back  from  the  air  its  lost  oxygen  and  became  red 
again,  the  same  thing  exactly  which  now  occurs 
in  the  purifying  of  our  blood.  As  a  red  in- 
soluble oxide  it  sank  to  the  bottom,  becoming 
thus,  instead  of  scattered  particles,  a  great  heap 
ready,  ages  after,  for  man's  reduction  of  it  into 
the  metal  which  has  played  such  a  part  in 
human  progress,  so  that  the  very  pen  with 
which  the  theologian  writes  his  argument 
against  evolution  is  itself  the  proof  of  its 
reality.  The  carboniferous  forests  grew  the 
vegetation  whose  decay  is  the  base  of  our 
enormous  coal  beds,  but  their  prostrate  forms, 


94     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

left  exposed  to  the  sun  and  air,  would  soon 
have  wasted  back  into  their  native  elements 
again,  had  not  a  great  convulsion  of  the  earth 
sunk  them  beneath  the  sea,  and  there  sealed 
them  up  air-tight  with  mud  and  sand,  just  as  a 
woman  does  her  summer  fruit  with  wax  and 
glass.  Then  another  convulsion  lifted  them  up 
for  another  growth,  to  be  followed  in  due  time 
with  another  sinking.  Nine  times  in  some  places 
was  this  process  repeated;  and  now,  on  nine 
different  shelves  in  earth's  cellar  the  mighty 
cans,  filled  with  their  precious  treasures,  stand 
waiting  for  human  use,  all  of  which  beautiful 
economy  is  denied  and  lost  sight  of  by  those 
who  in  the  interest  of  religion,  as  they  call  it, 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  evolution  they  point  to, 
and  hold  that  the  whole  thing  was  done  at  once 
by  a  single  magic  word.  What  gives  the  earth 
its  fertility?  Not  the  least  of  its  sources  is  the 
loosening  and  mixing  up  of  soils,  begun  long 
before  the  days  of  agricultural  schools,  by  the 
waters  and  frosts  which  seemed  to  be  only 
tearing  it  to  pieces,  and  about  the  time  of  man's 
appearing  on  the  scene,  completed  by  those  huge 
glacial  plows  whose  glittering  shares  a  thou- 
sand feet  thick  have  scratched  the  proofs  of 
their  existence  all  over  our  northern  bed  rocks. 
Why  do  nearly  all  the  great  mountain  chains 
and    continents    of   the   earth   run   north    and 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  95 

south,  thus  allowing  its  torrid  and  its  arctic 
waters  and  airs  to  modify  each  other  and  make 
parts  of  it  habitable  that  otherwise  would  be 
sealed  up  with  perpetual  snow?  They  are 
gigantic  proofs  of  the  far-off  time  in  the  earth's 
evolution  when  revolving  on  its  axis  faster  than 
it  does  now,  and  consequently  bulging  out  more 
at  its  equator,  it  was  compelled,  as  it  slowed 
down,  and  bulged  out  less,  to  shrivel  up  with 
its  ridges  lengthwise  rather  than  with  them 
east  and  west. 

So  with  scores  of  other  things.  Geology  is 
the  typewriter  girl  of  evolution.  The  earth's 
progressive  unfolding  does  not  have  to  be 
reasoned  out:  it  is  written  out,  written  on  its 
own  massive  tablets  of  continent-wide  stone. 
The  footprints  of  the  advancing  eons  are  just 
as  plainly  impressed  on  its  pages  as  are  those 
of  its  reptilian  birds.  If,  as  Tennyson  says, 
its  life 

"Was  battered  by  the  shocks  of  doom 
To  shape  and  use/' 

it  was  by  a  doom  that  was  in  itself.  The 
modification  of  old  structures  into  new  ones 
so  conspicuous  in  species,  is  equally  clear  in 
strata.  There  are  rudimental  boulders  in 
modern  soils  which  teach  the  same  lesson  as 
rudimental    bones    in    modern    animals;    aortic 


96     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

arches  of  ancient  rivers,  as  with  the  Connecti- 
cut between  Hartford  and  New  Haven,  which 
have  been  as  visibly  dried  up  in  the  land's  pass- 
ing from  its  jural  to  its  triassic  formations 
as  those  of  the  lizard  have  in  its  passing  from' 
its  fish  to  its  reptile  forms ;  primitive  rocks  yet 
at  the  surface,  as,  for  instance,  the  granites, 
which,  like  the  mosses  and  shells  of  protozoic 
time,  have  survived  unchanged  all  the  con- 
vulsions of  the  ages.  And,  as  if  to  make  the 
whole  thing  sure  beyond  any  possible  doubt, 
just  as  we  have  in  every  pond  amoebas  and 
rhizopods  to  show  us  what  the  animal  world 
started  from,  so  here  and  there  over  the  earth 
we  have  protoplasmic  lava  streams  bursting  up 
from  the  burning  core  below,  to  give  us  speci- 
mens of  the  very  stuff  out  of  which  the  material 
earth  originally  came. 

Turning  now  from  stones  to  stars,  their 
immense  distances,  their  apparent  diversity 
from  all  that  we  have  on  earth,  and  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  our  ever  watching  from  infancy 
to  age  their  eon-long  growth,  would  seem  to 
render  the  getting  from  them  of  any  evidence 
as  to  how  they  came,  an  almost  hopeless  task. 
They  are  the  very  framework  of  the  universe 
itself,  reach  in  space  out  into  infinity,  in  age 
down  into  eternity, — often  reveal  their  existence 
only   to  the  telescope's   twenty-inch  pupil  and 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  97 

the  photograph's  sensitized  retina.  Yet  even 
to  them  evolution  has  put  its  question,  O  ye 
shining  stars,  what  light  of  knowledge  can  you 
give  to  man  about  your  birth  and  growth?  O 
bands  of  Orion  and  sweet  influences  of 
Pleiades,  burning  suns  and  clustered  worlds, 
what  truths  will  you  reveal  to  finite  minds  as  to 
your  laws  and  forces  and  your  relations  to  one 
another  and  to  our  own  little  earth?  And  the 
question  has  been  answered  by  their  tongues  of 
light,  answered,  if  not  in  all  its  fullness,  yet 
with  not  a  little  of  that  same  kind  of  evidence 
that  we  have  received  from  the  things  of  earth. 
As  regards  our  solar  system,  what  are  the 
globular  shapes  of  its  members,  their  being  all 
made  of  matter,  all  obeying  the  laws  of  gravity, 
all  revolving  on  their  axes,  and  nearly  all 
moving  in  the  same  elliptic  plane,  but  the  like- 
nesses and  homologies  which  indicate,  as  they 
do  among  animals  and  plants,  that  they  have 
had  a  common  parentage,  their  birth  one  after 
another  from  the  same  cooling  and  contracting 
nebular  mist?  What,  rightly  viewed,  are,  also, 
their  differences  in  size,  satellites,  times  of  revo- 
lution, stages  of  progress,  baby  Jupiter  and 
old-age  moon,  reverse  rotations  of  Uranus  and 
Neptune,  erratic  comets,  and  multiplied  aster- 
oids, facts  so  often  pointed  to  as  proofs  of 
their  unlike  origin,  but  the  manifestations   of 


98     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

that  variability  which  is  so  vital  a  character- 
istic of  all  evolution,  and  so  conspicuous  in  the 
animal  kingdom, — elephants  and  microbes, 
quadrupeds  which  fly  and  fishes  leaving  their 
watery  plane  to  travel  on  land.  If  Nature  had 
deliberately  planned  to  give  man  an  indisputable 
rudiment  of  the  circular  form  that,  according 
to  evolution,  all  the  planets  and  satellites  have 
passed  through, — had  in  traversing  the  wilder- 
ness of  sky  purposely  left  behind  a  fragment 
of  her  dress,  or — shall  we  say — an  ornament 
of  her  fingers,  so  as  to  enable  man  the  surer  to 
follow  her  trail,  what  could  she  have  better 
chosen  for  it  than  those  wonderful  rings  which 
still  sparkle  on  the  planet  Saturn  nine  hundred 
millions  of  miles  out  in  the  depths  of  space? 
And  then  as  regards  that  integration  of  dif- 
ferences which  is  the  highest  stage  of  evolution, 
that  divine  unity  in  which  each  member  of  the 
system  does  his  work  without  jar  or  friction, 
where  can  we  find  a  better  example  of  it  than 
in  this  shining  family  of  the  skies?  There  is 
no  Venezuela  question  between  Venus  and  Mer- 
cury ;  no  part  of  the  earth,  not  even  England, 
that  wishes  to  grab  anything  on  Neptune  or 
Uranus.  Mars  is  named  after  the  god  of  war, 
but  not  even  any  newspaper  has  ever  heard  of 
his  being  ready  for  a  fight.  Jupiter  has  belts  ; 
but  the  rest  of  the  planets  do  not  have  to  make 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  99 

laws  against  his  arranging  on  their  soil  for  a 
pugilistic  encounter ;  Saturn  rings,  but  there  is 
not  the  slightest  reason  for  supposing  they 
have  anything  to  do  with  political  corruption; 
and  the  huge,  hot-tempered  Sun  himself,  in- 
stead of  acting  the  part  of  a  Russian  bear  to 
the  other  members  of  the  planetary  alliance,  is 
more  like  a  big  bird  gathering  them  all,  even 
the  little  asteroids,  under  his  warm  wings  and 
without  any  need  of  fighting  off  his  brother 
suns,  leading  them  all  in  safety  about  his  vast 
stellar  yard. 

Mounting  up  with  the  telescope  and  the 
spectroscope  into  the  great  sidereal  universe, 
we  find  that  with  all  its  distances  and  all  its 
differences,  it  has  its  points  of  contact  with  our 
own  little  earth,  has  its  grades  which  make  it 
easy  for  evolution,  without  even  a  flying  leap,  to 
rise  from  its  lowest  to  its  highest  point,  instead 
of  being  that  cold,  glittering,  motionless  realm 
which  it  often  impresses  us  as  being  on  a 
winter's  night,  No  buzzing  factory,  when  bus- 
iness is  good,  was  ever  more  alive  with  workers 
than  are  its  majestic  rooms  with  world-weavers 
and  sun-forgers,  no  woods  and  meadows  in 
springtime  more  varied  with  insects,  and  birds, 
and  flowers  than  are  its  radiant  fields  with  bud- 
ding planets,  bright-winged  stars,  and  many 
colored  suns.    Digging  into  the  depths  of  our 


100     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

own  earth,  we  find  in  its  heated  core  the  evidence 
of  a  time  in  its  far-off  youth  when  even  out- 
wardly it  was  one  of  their  glowing  brotherhood. 
They  are  all  composed  of  the  same  material,  only 
in  different  stages,  that  we  are,  all  have  at  their 
cores  the  same  hot  blood.  Gravity  is  their  one 
law,  ether  their  common  light,  motion  their 
united  life.  That  same  fierce  struggle  for  ex- 
istence and  survival  only  of  the  fittest,  which  are 
such  awful  agencies  of  evolution  in  our  terres- 
trial woods  and  fields,  are  in  operation  upon 
all  the  sidereal  heights,  world  eating  world  to 
keep  alive,  and  star  starving  star  to  get  its 
needed  food.  They,  too,  have  their  youth, 
maturity,  old  age,  and  time  to  die.  Every 
summer's  night,  turning  to  the  southern  sky, 
you  can  see  one  of  them,  Antares  in  the  neck  of 
the  Scorpion,  going  with  varied  colors  through 
its  dying  agonies.  Ceasing  to  be  sun  species, 
they  give  birth  to  planet  species.  And  just  as 
here  on  earth  to-day  you  can  find  every  grade 
of  animal  and  plant  that  the  animal  and  plant 
kingdoms  in  their  age-long  growth  have  ever 
known  from  amoeba  up  to  man  and  from  desmid 
on  to  daisy,  so  in  the  realms  of  sky,  though  we 
cannot  go  back  into  eternity  and  trace  their 
course,  we  can  find  as  contemporaries  of  our- 
selves every  grade  of  stellar  and  planet  life, 
from   the  protoplasmic  nebula  of  Orion  just 


INORGANIC  EVOLUTION  101 

wriggling  into  shape,  up  to  sparkling  Sirius 
walking  in  beauty  the  winter  sk}%  and  from  the 
firefly  meteors  of  earth  opening  their  wings  a 
moment  but  to  die,  on  to  the  unsetting  Ursa 
Major  bidding  the  north  forever  know  its 
place, — every  phase  that  the  stellar  and  planet 
kingdoms  have  ever  been  through,  all  the  steps 
of  one  mighty  stair-way,  all  the  links  of  one 
splendid  truth. 

This  discussion  may  seem,  in  some  of  its  as- 
pects, to  be  only  a  proof  of  material  evolution 
of  the  body,  and  not  the  soul  of  the  universe, 
but  is  not  the  seeing  of  how  such  a  body  has 
been  prepared,  one  of  the  best  ways  of  rising 
up  to  an  appreciation  of  its  indwelling  soul? 
"I  am  thinking  after  him  the  thoughts  of  God," 
said  the  astronomer  Kepler  reverently,  as  he 
first  came  to  some  of  these  great  stellar  truths. 
And  that  is  what  we  really  have  been  doing, 
thinking  after  him  the  thoughts  of  God.  And 
what  delving  in  dusty  manuscripts,  what 
wandering  in  the  mazes  of  theological  specu- 
lation, what  pondering  even  over  the  pages  of 
Christian  Scripture,  could  give  us  thoughts  of 
his  which  are  more  truly  sublime  than  this 
tracing  of  what  he  has  done  from  atom  to  star; 
what  put  us  in  a  more  reverent  mood  towards 
him  than  this  standing  for  a  space  in  his  great 
temple  of  the  universe?     A  pious  French  abbe 


102      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

complained  to  a  scientific  friend,  one  day,  about 
the  indifference  of  his  flock  to  sacred  things, 
how  in  spite  of  his  most  careful  expositions  of 
Scripture  setting  forth  the  wisdom  and  good- 
ness of  Almighty  God  they  would  yawn  and  go 
to  sleep.  His  friend  advised  him  to  drop  awhile 
the  written  book  and  preach  to  them  the  glories 
of  God  out  of  the  great  book  of  nature, — and 
meeting  him  the  next  week,  he  inquired  the 
result.  "Oh,  wretch  that  I  am !"  exclaimed  the 
priest,  "I  did  as  you  advised,  told  them  about 
the  size  and  splendor  of  the  sun  and  wonder  of 
the  stars,  and  how  great  he  must  be  who  made 
them  all ;  and  alas,  alas !  they  did  not  indeed  go 
to  sleep,  but  they  went  to  the  other  extreme: 
they  profaned  the  house  of  God  by  breaking 
into  applause."  That  special  way  of  approving 
what  God  does  is  doubtless  too  Frenchy  for  us 
sober  Americans  to  be  in  danger  of  its  use. 
But  if  the  light  of  the  stars  as  they  now  are 
can  keep  men's  bodily  eyes  awake,  how  much 
more  ought  the  light  of  the  process  by  which 
their  shining  came,  keep  their  souls  from 
stupor;  and  if  the  wonder  of  the  universe  as 
it  reaches  through  space  can  throw  them  into 
ecstasies  of  worship,  what,  in  view  of  the  eons 
of  time  added  to  space  through  which  its 
wonder  was  unfolded,  ought  to  be  their 
emotions? 


VI 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE 

The  method  of  proving  the  truth  of  evolu- 
tion which  I  have  tried  to  follow  in  this  course 
of  lectures,  has  been  not  to  begin  with  the  origin 
of  things  in  a  far-off  nebula  and  take  them  in 
their  chronological  order,  but  to  start  in  with 
the  easy  and  undeniable  ones  right  around  us 
that  we  can  actually  see  are  the  outcome,  by 
natural  laws  and  forces,  of  their  preceding 
states,  and  thence  pass  on  gradually  to  those 
which  are  more  remote  and  difficult.  "You  will 
admit  that  two  and  two  make  four,  won't  you?" 
said  the  irrespressible  village  logician  to  his 
opponent  in  the  grocery  store  whom  he  was  try- 
ing politically  to  convert.  "No,  I  won't,"  re- 
plied the  man  who  had  experienced  at  other 
times  the  logician's  argufying  powers,  "for  if 
I  do,  you  will  lead  me  on  and  on  with  more  twos 
and  twos  till  I  have  either  got  to  accept  your 
doctrines  or  deny  at  last  that  they  make  four, 
and  I  may  as  well  make  a  fool  of  myself  by  deny- 
ing it  at  the  beginning  as  at  the  end."  So 
103 


104      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

with  the  opponents  of  evolution.  Their  only 
safe  way  is  to  start  in  with  denying  that  the 
two  and  two  of  natural  laws  and  forces  will 
make  four.  With  the  facts  right  before  their 
eyes,  they  are  hardly  able  to  be  fools  as  soon 
as  that,  and  so  they  wait  till  they  have  reached 
some  remoter  and  obscurer  fours,  those, 
perhaps,  where  a  new  species  of  things  comes 
in,  before  they  set  up  the  doctrine  that  they 
must  be  the  product  of  something  else  than 
two  and  two.  At  the  very  pleasant  tea-table 
where  I  was  sitting  one  evening  when  away  from 
home  on  an  exchange,  the  minister's  wife  and 
sister,  both  of  them  the  graduates  of  a  high- 
toned  academy,  and  the  latter  a  teacher  in  one 
of  our  glorious  public  schools,  got  into  a  dis- 
cussion as  to  where  the  moon  rose.  The  min- 
ister's wife  was  sure  it  rose  in  the  west  because 
she  had  seen  it  there  over  her  right  shoulder, 
while  the  teacher  had  a  glimmering  idea  that  its 
rising  was  in  the  east  because  somebody's 
poetry  had  made  it  rhyme  with  yeast.  So 
along  with  the  tea  and  the  toast  they  mildly 
argued  the  matter  for  some  time,  and  then  each 
politely  yielding  something  to  the  other,  as 
Christian  ladies  will,  they  harmoniously  settled 
down  into  the  agreement  that  when  it  is  an  old 
moon  it  rises  in  the  east,  but  when  a  new  one, 
in  the  west,  a  good  illustration  of  the  kind  of 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        105 

truth  to  which  most  compromises  lead.  And  so 
as  regards  evolution,  there  are  not  a  few 
religious  teachers  and  minister's  wives'  hus- 
bands who  hold  that  when  things  are  old  and 
familiar,  existing  animals  and  plants  and  the 
"fours"  of  our  daily  lives,  they  originate  in  the 
natural  east  and  from  the  twos  and  twos  of  an 
earthly  parentage,  but  that  when  they  are  new 
and  strange,  as  the  beginnings  of  species  and 
worlds  and  life  and  soul,  they  can  rise  only  in 
the  supernatural  west  and  by  a  miraculous 
creation.  We  have  seen  the  evidences,  however, 
that  the  new  moons  of  species  and  planets  and 
stars  rise  exactly  where  the  old  ones  do,  and 
that  so  far  as  material  things  are  conceived, 
additions  to  them  at  the  beginning  are  by  the 
same  fundamental  rules  of  arithmetic  that  they 
are  afterwards.  And  now  I  proceed  to  the 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  same  is  true  of 
those  things  which  transcend  matter  and  which, 
though  close  at  hand,  are  more  difficult  to  deal 
with  than  Ursa  and  the  Milky  Way. 

The  first  of  these  is  life.  What  is  it  and 
whence  does  it  come?  We  all  have  it  in  our- 
selves ;  without  it  could  not  ask  the  question, 
and  it  is  all  around  us  in  a  myriad  other  things ; 
has  its  special  marks  that  we  all  know ;  does 
continually  what  nothing  else  can ;  builds  on 
earth  a  vast,  twofold  kingdom,  and  is  the  base 


106      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

of  that  intelligence  without  which  all  the  rest 
of  the  universe,  splendid  as  it  is,  would  be  only 
an  empty  house. 

Yet  how  difficult  is  its  definition  even  to  our 
thought.  Religion  calls  it  on  the  one  hand  a 
breath  of  the  Almighty,  and  on  the  other  a 
vapor  which  appeareth  for  a  little  while  and 
then  vanisheth  away;  poetry,  "a  bubble,"  "a 
cheat,"  "a  walking  shadow,"  "a  confused  noise 
between  two  silences."  One  of  the  ponderous 
dictionaries  tells  us,  learnedly,  that  it  is  "a 
state  of  being  alive" ;  Mr.  Mantalini  that  it  is 
"a  demd  horrid  grind."  English  pragmatism 
declares  that  it  is  "the  sum  of  the  tendencies 
which  resist  death,"  French  epigrammatism  go- 
ing; to  the  other  extreme,  that  "it  is  itself 
death."  Herbert  Spencer's  famous  statement 
of  it  as  a  "definite  combination  of  heterogene- 
ous changes  both  simultaneous  and  successive 
in  correspondence  with  external  co-existences 
and  sequences,"  while  setting  forth  admirably 
its  phenomena,  fails  to  set  forth  the  thing  it- 
self; is  like  speaking  of  a  tree  as  a  definite 
combination  of  heterogeneous  growings,  but 
without  saying  what  it  is  that  grows ;  and  the 
simpler  definition  of  it  given  by  Mr.  Fiske,  as 
"the  internal  and  external  activity  of  an  or- 
ganism in  relation  to  its  environment"  shuts 
out  on  the  one  side  such  things  as  seeds  and 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        107 

germs  which  are  alive  without  being  active, 
and  includes  on  the  other,  such  things  as 
steam-engines  driving  factories,  which  are  ac- 
tive without  being  alive.  And  then  as  to  its 
origin,  no  eye  has  ever  seen  it  rising  in  nature 
from  the  world's  preceding  inorganic  state;  no 
experiment  in  the  laboratorv  succeeded  in  o<et- 
ting  it  from  what  beyond  question  was  other- 
wise than  alive.  Sir  Win.  Thompson's  idea 
that  it  might  have  come  to  earth  on  a  meteor- 
ite exploded  from  another  planet,  only  puts 
the  question  a  little  further  off, — is  about  as 
senseless  a  solution  of  it  as  anything  that  a 
man  of  scientific  standing  ever  put  forth. 
And  taking  these  facts  all  together,  and  espe- 
cially the  wide  remove  of  its  higher  qualities 
from  those  of  matter,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
supernaturalists  have  made  it  one  of  their  great 
rallying  points  as  an  instance  of  something 
which  must  come  from  a  Being  who  is  outside 
of  natural  law  and  force. 

But  the  two  realms  with  all  their  separations 
have  here  also,  as  everywhere  else  in  nature, 
a  multitude  also  of  connecting  links.  There  is 
a  Hindoo  myth  that  the  gods  and  Asuras,  a 
race  of  genii,  sat  for  ages  on  the  shores  of 
the  ocean,  part  on  one  side  and  part  on  the 
other,  churning  its  waves  to  bring  forth  out 
of  them  the  Amreeta,  the  waters  of  life.      Eon 


108      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

after  eon  as  they  churned,  the  moon  and  many 
other    strange    things    appeared,   but    not    the 
Amreeta.     Nevertheless  they  kept  on  with  their 
churning,    and   finally,    one   day,   the    stubborn 
ocean   yielded,    and   the    precious,   long-desired 
waters    appeared.      The   genii   are   the   mighty 
forces   of  nature;   the   ocean,   the  vast   sea   of 
nebulous  mist.     Out  of  their  churning  we  have 
seen  sun  and  moon  and  stars  and  many  other 
strange  things    already   appear   that   are  her- 
alds and  hints  of  the  stranger  one  which  is  on 
its    way.     Who    has    ever    watched    the    subtle 
operations  of  chemistry,  each  element  selecting 
its  own  special  material  with  which  to  be  united, 
or   the   wonderful   shaping   of   a   crystal,   each 
particle  guided  naturally  to  its  own  place,  re- 
producing from  an  inner  type  the  parts  of  it 
which   are  broken   off,  and  using  sometimes   a 
germ-like  particle  from  another  crystal  of  the 
same   kind  with  which   to   get   a   better   start, 
and  not  felt  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  mys- 
tery second  only  to  that  of  life?     Protoplasm, 
the  living  raw  material  out  of  which  all  organic 
forms  are  made,  is  composed  chemically  of  the 
same  elements,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen  and 
carbon,  that  are  found  in  a  multitude  of  inor- 
ganic things,  has  had  not  a  few  of  its  higher 
compounds  once   supposed  to  be  makable  only 
in  the  laboratories  of  life,  reproduced  equally 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        109 

well  in  those  of  science.  Organic  growth  goes 
through  the  same  three  great  stages  of  homo- 
geneity, differentiation  and  integration  that 
are  the  characteristics  of  inorganic  evolution. 
And  though  no  one  has  ever  seen  ordinary  mat- 
ter converted  into  living  matter  without  the 
help  of  life,  yet  everyone  with  such  help  sees 
it  continually  done  all  around  him,  plants 
evolving  it  out  of  the  soil  into  vegetable  mat- 
ter, and  animals  out  of  plants  into  animal  mat- 
ter. In  fact,  the  very  thing  which  there  is 
so  much  mystery  about  in  nature  is  being  re- 
peated every  day  at  our  tables ;  particles  of 
matter  which  are  absolutely  dead,  killed,  baked, 
boiled,  roasted,  fried  and  chewed  dead,  being 
eaten  one  hour,  and  three  hours  afterwards 
made  alive  again  and  floating  in  our  blood,  and 
of  the  same  protoplasmic  substance  as  that 
which  is  afloat  in  our  ponds  and  is  the  begin- 
ning of  all  life,  a  process  how  analogous  to  the 
embryonic  repetition  of  racial  growth  which 
takes  place  later  on  in  all  animals,  and  is  so 
conclusive  an  argument  for  the  natural  origin 
of  species. 

Then,  as  regards  the  life  principle  itself 
which  is  in  the  protoplasm  and  in  all  living 
things,  and  is  their  really  distinctive  quality,  a 
large  part  of  the  difficulty  about  its  inorganic 
evolution  disappears,  if  it  is  conceived  of  as  a 


110     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

differentiation  and  function,  not  of  matter 
alone,  but  of  that  force  which  is  in  matter  and 
in  all  the  inorganic  world.  It  has  been  the 
custom  of  some  scientists  to  ridicule  the  idea 
of  vital  force  as  an  exploded  superstition ;  but 
it  is  hard  to  see  why.  Its  recognition  simply 
coordinates  it  with  mechanical  force,  chemical 
force,  electric  force,  crystallizing  force  and  the 
like,  as  variations,  such  as  nature  everywhere 
else  is  filled  with,  of  one  underlying  energy, 
that  energy,  it  may  be,  the  outflow  of 
the  world's  eternal,  all-pervading  spirit;  and 
as  crystallizing  force,  chemical  force  and 
the  like  are  not  the  product  of  crystals 
and  chemical  compounds,  but  are  their  pro- 
ducers, so  vital  force  is  not  the  result  of 
vital  organizations  but  is  itself  the  organizer, 
or,  supplementing  Spencer's  definition,  is  the 
agency  which  carries  on  "its  definite  combina- 
tion of  heterogeneous  changes."  Taken  thus, 
life  with  its  special  qualities  is  simply  the 
mounting  up  of  inorganic  force  one  octave 
more  in  that  great  diatonic  scale  that  we  have 
found  in  other  things,  and  on  which  the  uni- 
verse everywhere  is  apparently  arranged.  And 
just  as  matter  in  cooling  seems  to  have  come 
to  a  stage  never  repeated,  in  which  it  was  ex- 
actly fitted  for  having  matter  pass  into  its  dif- 
ferent elemental  groups,  so,  later  on,  it  is  rea- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        111 

sonable  to  think  it  came  to  a  condition  in  which 
the  force  that  had  always  been  associated  with 
matter  was  differentiated,  just  as  naturally, 
from  its  other  groups  into  that  of  vital  force. 
The  evidence  that  its  material  embodiments, 
its  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms  and  its  dif- 
ferent species,  have  all  originated  from  its  first 
protoplasmic  form,  has  already  been  pre- 
sented; but  coining  in  here  as  more  especially 
a  phase  of  life,  are  the  evidences  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process  by  which  it  is  continued  in  its 
individual  possessors,  and  transmitted  from  one 
generation  of  them  to  another,  and  of  how  it 
is  related  to  death.  In  the  individual  it  is  by 
the  constant  using  up  the  old  cells  in  which 
it  is  stored,  and  the  putting  in  their  place  of 
the  new  ones  derived  from  food.  The  old 
Frenchman  was  at  least  half  right  when  he 
defined  life  as  death.  The  two  are  not  con- 
tending foes,  as  they  are  sometimes  repre- 
sented as  being,  but  a  firm  of  great  cooperat- 
ing partners,  life  being  possible  only  by  con- 
tinuous death,  and  death  only  by  continuous 
life.  Every  time  we  move,  every  time  we  think, 
every  time  we  feel,  every  time  we  in  any  way 
live,  it  is  only  by  having  some  part  of  us  die. 
In  the  vegetable  world  the  dead  parts  are  util- 
ized, some  to  give  its  trunks  and  stalks  stabil- 
ity, and  some  to  fertilize  the  soil  beneath  them 


112     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

for  other  growths ;  and  in  the  animal  world  a 
part  to  keep  the  body  warm,  and  a  part  to  go 
the  round  of  the  elements  into  life  again.  It 
is  a  process  which  explains  why  we  eat  food. 
It  is  not  merely  for  the  fun  of  it  as  some  of 
its  eaters  seem  to  think.  It  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  engineer  puts  coal  into  the  fur- 
nace of  a  steam-engine,  to  generate  the  force 
by  which  the  functions  of  life,  acting,  think- 
ing, feeling,  are  to  be  carried  on,  another  rea- 
son for  believing  in  vital  force ;  and  then,  in 
turn,  the  hunger  for  food  and  the  absolute  ne- 
cessity of  getting  it,  become  the  great  driving- 
wheel  that  keeps  the  factory  of  the  big  world 
alive  and  in  operation ;  so  naturally  in  evolution 
does  one  thins*  arise  out  of  another. 

But  it  is  not  the  cells  of  the  body  alone 
which  are  used  up  in  living.  Little  by  little 
the  whole  body  itself  grows  old  and  effete,  is 
worn  out  and  dies.  That  is  exactly  what  death 
is,  life's  material  used  up  in  living;  begins  at 
the  cradle,  ends  only  at  the  grave ;  can  be  pre- 
vented only  in  one  way,  by  our  not  living, 
merely  existing,  as  sometimes  a  frog  does, 
sealed  up  in  a  rock  or  tree.  While  in  the 
army  I  was  sent  on  one  occasion  with  some  dis- 
patches from  Roanoke  Island  across  Albe- 
marle Sound  to  Elizabeth  City.  Our  boat  was 
a   miserable   little    steamer   captured    from   the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        113 

foe;   and   all   night,   not   daring  to  land   any- 
where, we   struggled  against  the  fierce  March 
wind,  again  and  again  nearly  going  to  the  bot- 
tom.     Towards    morning    our    wood    and    coal 
gave  out,  and  then  to  keep  the  boat  in  motion 
we  had  to  begin  tearing  to  pieces  its  cabin  and 
decks  and  putting  them  under  the  boiler,  our 
last  available  stick  being  in  embers  as   slowly 
and    gaspingly    we    crept    up    to    the    wharf. 
That   is   how   it   is   with  this  body   of  ours   in 
which    the    soul    is    sent   with   dispatches    from 
time   to   eternity.      Battling   with   the   gales   of 
earth,  it  has  to  use  itself  up  in  getting  there 
and,  did  it  exist  as   one  generation  alone,  the 
end  would  again  be   universal  death.     But   in 
anticipation  of   its   fate,  while  it  is   yet   in   its 
vigor,  the  same  thing  takes  place  with  the  body 
as  a  whole,  that  all  along  has  been  taking  place 
with  its  single  minute  cells.     It  imparts  its  life 
to  another  body  endowed  with  a   fresh   set   of 
cells.     Reproduction,    therefore,    is    simply    a 
differentiation    of    growth;    and   what    the    cell 
is    to    the    individual,   the   individual   is    to    the 
race,  is  simply  a  larger  cell  helping  by  its  be- 
ing used  up  and  dying  to  keep  humanity  alive ; 
so  beautifully  again  does  one  thing  in  evolu- 
tion unfold  naturally  into  another,  so  wonder- 
derfully  what  under  the  old  theology  was  the 
penalty  of  disobedience  and  the  curse  of  God, 


114      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

becomes  under  this  new  revelation  the  result 
of  obedience  and  a  gift  to  man  of  an  ever 
greater  blessing. 

There  are  five  different  ways  in  which  phys- 
ical life  is  continued  from  one  generation  to 
another.  The  first  and  earliest  is  that  of  fis- 
sion, the  one  in  which  a  single-celled  animal 
simply  divides  itself  into  two  parts,  the  very 
thing  which  takes  place  in  all  growth;  the  last 
and  highest,  that  in  which  the  two  sexes  blend 
their  lives  in  a  child  which  is  distinct  from  them 
both.  Looked  at  superficially,  it  seems  as  if 
the  two  ways  were  the  exact  opposites  of  each 
other,  the  first  a  division  and  the  last  a  union 
of  cells,  and  as  if  there  could  be  no  natural 
evolution  of  the  one  into  the  other.  But 
Haeckel  has  shown  most  conclusively  that  the 
other  three  ways,  those  of  budding,  germ  buds, 
and  germ  cells,  are  the  connecting  links  be- 
tween the  lowest  and  the  highest,  and  that  even 
in  the  highest  there  is  always  a  repetition  of 
the  lowest;  that  is,  a  dividing  of  substance 
from  each  of  the  parents  first;  and  so  repro- 
duction becomes  in  its  highest  phase  simply  a 
continuation  of  growth,  a  growth  of  the  race 
instead  of  the  individual,  a  growth  in  which 
all  the  oldness  and  wornness  of  the  parental 
bodily  cells  are  left  behind,  and  only  the  fresh- 
ness and  vigor  of  its  new  specialized  ones,  filled 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE        115 

with  the  deeper  inheritable  qualities  of  the 
parents,  are  passed  on.  So  easily  does  Nature 
grade  the  way  from  generation  to  generation, 
so  wonderfully  out  of  life's  old  age  get  for- 
ever and  forever  life's  immortal  youth,  so 
honestly  recompense  her  children  for  the  pain 
and  loss  of  growing  old  and  being  worn  out 
themselves  in  her  service,  by  giving  them  what 
is  more  precious  than  their  own  lives  and  what 
they  otherwise  would  never  have  known,  the 
joy  of  having,  rearing,  and  loving  those 
through  whom  the  world's  life  is  to  be  passed 
on. 

Following  life  up  from  its  roots  has  thus 
brought  us,  almost  unconsciously,  into  the  very 
midst  of  another  great  phase  of  evolution, 
that  of  love.  But  this  in  its  origin  and  de- 
velopment is  of  itself  so  wonderful  and  beauti- 
ful as  to  deserve  a  separate  treatment,  and 
reserving  its  consideration  for  another  lecture, 
let  me  round  off  our  thoughts  about  the  evolu- 
tion of  earthly  life,  by  calling  attention  to  its 
bearing  on  the  great  question  of  an  immortal 
life.  If  physical  life  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
mere  result  of  physical  organization,  like  the 
movement  of  a  watch  of  its  making,  as  ma- 
terialism claims ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
gift  of  God  supernaturally  breathed  into  the 
physical  organization  as  theology  has  taught, 


116      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

then  the  death  of  the  body,  as  with  the  de- 
struction of  a  watch,  may  well  be  regarded  as 
the  end  of  its  movement,  and  the  penalty  of 
its  sin.  But  if  life  is  the  unfolding  of  a  force 
which  everywhere  else  in  nature  is  immaterial, 
and  which,  as  we  have  seen,  can  be  transferred 
from  one  material  body  to  another,  and  can 
even  make  the  death  of  the  material  body  it  is 
in  the  very  means  of  such  continuance,  why  is 
it  not  fair  to  believe  that  it  can  also  be  con- 
tinued from  a  material  to  a  spiritual  body,  and 
make  death  there  also  the  means  of  its  continu- 
ance? It  is  not  life  anywhere  which  really  dies, 
but  only  what  life  was  in.  It  is  a  view,  to  be 
sure,  which  makes  the  final  change  different  in 
some  respects  from  all  the  others,  but  this 
only  renders  it  so  much  the  more  natural. 
The  trunk  of  the  tree  continues  its  life  in  the 
limbs,  and  the  limbs  in  the  branches,  and  the 
branches  in  the  twigs,  and  all  these  are  alike 
in  form,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  twigs,  they 
transfer  it  into  what?  Why,  into  flowers  and 
fruit,  different  how  widely  and  how  beautifully 
from  all  its  other  forms.  So  with  nature  as 
a  whole ;  it  puts  its  life  first  into  animals  and 
species  and  races  and  individuals,  all  material, 
but  when  it  comes  to  the  end  of  individuals, 
and  wants  to  continue  the  process,  what  should 
we   expect   the   next   step   to   be,   but   spiritual 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE       117 

bodies,  something  above  matter,  the  flowering 
and  fruitage  of  its  other  forms?  And  thus  we 
see  how  naturally  and  inevitably  under  the 
touch  of  evolution  the  life  which  is  rooted  in 
sod  ripens  in  soul. 


VII 
THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE 

My  preceding  lecture  in  this  course  was  on 
the  evolution  of  life, — its  definition  as  that  in- 
terior power  of  an  organism  which  enables  it 
continually  to  readjust  its  inner  changes  to 
its  outward  environment ;  its  probable  origin 
as  a  differentiation  of  natural  force;  its  rela- 
tions with  mechanical  force,  chemical  force, 
electric  force,  crystallizing  force,  and  the  like; 
the  wonderful  methods  by  which  it  is  continued 
in  growth  and  reproduction  from  cell  to  cell 
and  from  generation  to  generation, — itself 
never  dying,  but  only  what  it  is  in; — and  the 
natural  possibility  of  its  being  continued  at 
last  from  a  material  to  a  spiritual  body,  and 
so  of  immortality's  being  provided  for  in  the 
very  nature  of  life  and  death. 

Side  by  side  with  the  wonder  of  life  itself  is 
the  evolution  out  of  it,  of  that  tie  which  binds  its 
different  forms  together  and  which  in  human 
beings  has  reached  such  heights  of  beauty  and 
power, — the  tie  of  love.  Darwin  has  shown, 
118 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       119 

carefully  and  scientifically,  what  an  immense 
factor  it  has  been  even  in  the  animal  and  vege- 
table worlds,  for  the  development  of  their  cour- 
age, strength  and  shapeliness ;  and  in  the 
human  world,  as  revealed  to  the  most  casual 
eye,  how  wide  over  camp  and  court,  hovel  and 
throne  has  been  its  sway,  how  mighty  its  in- 
fluence. It  is  no  small  part  of  the  power  which 
drives  the  shuttle  in  that  roaring  loom  of  time 
out  of  which  comes  the  web  of  our  common 
daily  prosaic  lives.  Like  a  vein  of  gold  it 
runs  through  all  heroism  and  gallantry, 
all  poetry  and  romance.  It  has  been  one  of  the 
great  factors  of  history, — kissed  away  king- 
doms, folded  nations  in  its  arms,  whispered 
battles  with  its  breath.  Religion  has  borrowed 
its  language  to  express  the  grandest  of  her 
own  truths, — told  us  that  God  is  love,  and  the 
sum  of  all  duty,  loving.  It  mingles  its  luster 
with  the  great  hope  of  immortality, — makes 
half  of  our  conception  of  heaven  and  more 
than  one-half  of  its  attractions.  And  the 
marriage  relation  in  which  it  finds  its  con- 
summation, having  as  its  central  idea  that  each 
person  in  going  out  into  the  world  should  not 
be  left  to  fight  its  battles  and  bear  its  burdens 
alone,  but  have  a  helper  bound  to  him  by  the 
sweetest  of  all  ties,  another  self  yet  different 
from  self,  the  two  nursing  each  other  in  sick- 


120      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

ness,  defending  each  other  in  assault,  and 
making  for  each  other  a  common  property  and 
a  common  home ;  that  out  of  their  union  should 
come  a  blended  continuation  of  themselves  in 
those  dearer  than  self,  and  that  with  passion's 
flame  sobered  into  friendship's  fire,  they  should 
walk  in  its  warmth  through  the  chills  of  age, 
helpers  still  to  the  final  home,  however  short  of 
its  ideal  it  may  come  practically, — could  there 
be,  at  least  in  its  conception,  a  more  exquisite 
device  for  promoting  the  world's  welfare,  and  a 
surer  evidence  that  at  the  heart  of  things  is 
somehow  Infinite  Goodness? 

What,  now,  under  evolution,  is  the  source  of 
the  agent  which  has  played  such  a  tremendous 
part  in  the  world's  progress,  and  which  is  still 
so  precious  an  element  in  the  world's  attain- 
ments?    Poets  have  sung  it  as 

"The  sacred  fyre  ykindled  from  above 
Emongst  the  eternall  spheres  and  lamping  sky 
And  thence  poured  into  men." 

And  truly  if  there  is  anything  on  earth  which 
in  its  finer  forms  would  seem  to  be  the  direct 
breath  of  Deity,  anything  which  at  first  view 
it  would  seem  impossible  to  account  for  as 
rising  out  of  protoplasm  and  dust,  it  is  its 
"sacred  fyre."  Evolution,  however,  finds  the 
same  law  prevailing  here  as  everywhere  else  in 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       121 

nature ;  first,  the  lowly  germ  embedded  in  a  pre- 
ceding state  of  things,  then  the  coarse  material 
stalk  growing  gradually  out  of  it,  and  then  on 
this  stalk  the  fragrant  flower  and  rich  fruit. 
And  though  to  pass  from  its  sentimental  splen- 
dors to  its  scientific  source  may  seem  like  going 
up  like  a  rocket  and  coming  down  like  a  stick, 
nevertheless,  I  think  I  can  show  that  the  real 
process  is  going  up  as  a  stick,  and  then  burst- 
ing into  rocket  splendors  for  which  there  shall 
never  be  any  coming  down  at  all. 

Going  back  to  its  starting  point  in  living 
creatures,  all  love  has  necessarily  to  begin  with 
self  and  to  take  the  form  of  self-love.  The 
only  thing  a  creature  can  be  conscious  of  at 
first  is  its  own  existence,  and,  if  it  is  going  to 
live,  the  only  thing  that  it  can  care  for  at  the 
start  is  the  supply  of  its  own  wants.  To  care 
for  a  thing,  however,  is  to  love  it.  That  is 
what  the  word  "care"  means  in  Latin,  love ;  and 
we  have  the  same  connection  in  English  through 
the  word  dear,  a  word  which  on  the  one  side 
means  costly  in  the  way  of  money  and  effort ; 
and  on  the  other,  beloved,  a  dear  dress  and  a 
dear  friend.  It  is  a  connection  which  holds 
true  of  all  love.  Care  is  its  food  and  nurse. 
The  mother  loves  her  child,  the  husband  his 
wife,  the  citizen  his  country,  the  Christian  his 
church,  the  soul  its  God,  just  in  proportion  as 


123      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

they  take  care  of  them  and  do  for  them ;  and 
the  cares  of  life, — those  things  of  which  men  so 
often  complain, — without  them  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  have  what  we  all  so  much  rejoice 
in,  its  loves.  Theologians  in  the  past  have 
identified  self-love  with  sin,  have  told  us  that 
the  first  thing  to  be  done  before  we  could  have 
any  higher  love  was  to  crush  it  out.  But  this 
was  never  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  His  com- 
mand was:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself,"  recognizing  not  only  that  our  neighbor 
is  a  part  of  ourselves,  but  that  love  to  ourselves 
is  the  starting  point  of  love  to  him  and  is  of 
the  same  religious  quality ;  and  science  agrees 
with  him, — shows  that  love  to  self  is  the  nec- 
essary condition  of  all  life  and  that  without  it 
there  could  not  be  anyone  either  to  love  or  to  be 
loved. 

Passing  on  to  its  next  form,  love  between 
the  sexes,  a  large  part  of  its  problem  is  the 
origin  of  these  two  great  divisions  in  the  sphere 
of  life,  itself  one  of  the  most  wonderful  facts 
in  nature.  Of  five  hundred  theories  which  have 
been  propounded  for  its  explanation,  while  no 
one  as  yet  has  been  freely  established,  and 
while  food,  environment,  parental  age,  time  of 
union  and  the  like,  are  doubtless  all  factors, 
and  in  the  lower  animals  sometimes  apparently 
overruling  factors,  the   one  which  lies  at  tne 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       123 

basis  of  the  others  and  best  explains  the  equal 
numbers  of  the  sexes  and  the  subtler  and  finer 
differences  between  them,  is  the  view  that  the 
little  protoplasmic  cell  in  which  life  begins, 
has  its  two  opposite  poles,  each,  like  all  po- 
larity, with  its  different  characteristics  which, 
when  the  cell  propagates  itself  by  dividing,  as 
we  found  to  be  the  case  in  all  growth,  all  re- 
production, all  continuance  of  life,  become  nat- 
urally the  starting  points  of  two  sides,  two 
kinds  of  living  things.  As  with  polarity 
everywhere  else,  it  is  those  with  the  opposite 
sides  which  attract  each  other;  and  as  their 
possessors  increase  in  size  and  complexity,  the 
differences  in  their  organizations,  as  the  re- 
sult of  them,  become  more  and  more  pro- 
nounced, developing  sometimes  in  the  same  in- 
dividual, as  with  many  plants,  and  at  last,  as 
with  the  higher  animals,  always  in  two,  and 
repeated  embryonically  in  each  individual's 
growth, — these  that  culminate  physically  in 
the  two  great  halves  of  the  human  family  so 
like  yet  different,  while  the  lowly  influence  which 
drew  them  together  at  first,  so  akin  with  what 
every  bit  of  iron  displays,  mounts  up  on  the 
animal  side  through  a  myriad  lower  creatures 
into  the  love  which  is  so  often  their  guiding 
needle  on  the  stormy  sea  of  life,  and  in  the 
vegetable    kingdom,    through    a   myriad   plants 


124     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

into  the  orange  flowers  that  are  the  symbol  of 
their  wedded  lives.  How  far  the  division  of 
that  far-off  protoplasmic  cell  in  which,  accord- 
ing to  this  view,  love  began,  may  account  also, 
atavistically,  for  the  miffs  and  quarrels  and  di- 
vorces into  which,  like  the  zebra  stripes  on  a 
horse,  it  ever  and  anon,  even  now,  breaks  forth, 
evolution  can  only  hint,  but  it  gives  a  scien- 
tific basis  for  the  terms  magnetism,  attraction, 
drawn  to,  and  the  like,  which  are  used  so  com- 
monly as  the  synonyms  of  love ;  and  it  is  a  good 
illustration  of  that  oneness,  differentiation  and 
oneness  again,  which  are  the  three  great  stages 
of  all  evolution.  Mr.  Drummond  and  other 
writers  have  spoken  of  sex  as  an  anomaly  in 
creation,  "a  phenomenon  which  stands  abso- 
lutely alone  in  the  field  of  nature," — as  what 
"has  nothing  at  all  like  it,"  and  is  without  a 
parallel  in  the  world.  But  this  is  a  groundless 
assertion.  Wherever  force  is,  there  is  po- 
larity. Every  magnet,  every  blade  of  grass 
attracted  with  its  stem  up  and  its  root  down, 
every  electric  cloud  swinging  through  the 
skies,  our  whole  earth  with  its  north  and  south 
poles,  every  planet  swinging  through  space, 
every  beam  of.  light,  nay,  possibly  the  universe 
itself  with  gravity  at  one  extreme  drawing  to- 
gether, and  the  opposite  of  gravity  at  the 
other,  driving  apart,  are  its  analogues.     Love 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       125 

is  simply  vital  force  polarized, — is  related  to 
chemical  force  and  crystallizing  force  as  the 
wings  of  the  bird  are  to  those  of  the  fish  and 
the  bat,  or  among  the  elements,  as  copper  is  to 
iron  and  fluorine ;  is  the  first  note  in  the  great 
octave  of  life.  See,  too,  how  directly  and  in- 
evitably it  grows  out  of  life,  the  very  division 
by  which  alone  its  primal  cell  can  get  food  and 
so  live,  making  it  a  necessity, — how  rooted, 
also,  it  is  through  force  in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe  itself.  We  cannot  live, 
nay,  we  cannot  even  be,  without  some  form  of 
love.  Then  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  not  in 
numbers  alone,  but  in  rights  and  powers, — 
that,  likewise,  lies  at  the  very  foundations  of 
their  existence.  Who  shall  say  there  is  any 
difference  between  the  polarities  in  which  they 
both  begin?  When  life's  primal  protoplas- 
mic cell  divided,  it  divided,  as  it  does  now,  in 
the  middle,  divided  equally  the  common  goods. 
Woman  has  never  given  up  that  original  birth- 
right, never  could  and  never  can  give  it  up. 
When  I  hear  lawyers  and  politicians  talking 
about  their  being  no  natural  rights,  and  that 
what  women  or  any  other  human  beings  are 
to  have,  are  a  gift  of  legislation  and  a  matter 
of  expediency,  I  want  to  send  such  children 
for  awhile  to  the  primary  school  of  evolution. 
There   are   statute   books   older   than    those   of 


126     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Judea  and  Rome,  commentaries  wiser  than 
Blackstone  and  Kent,  epistles  more  authori- 
tative than  those  of  Paul,  legislative  halls 
which  antedate  those  of  empires  and  repub- 
lics. They  began  with  life,  are  based  on  the 
constitution  of  the  universe;  and  it  is  from 
them  that  women,  and  all  of  us,  get  our  rights. 

Notice,  also,  how  closely  the  scientific  ac- 
count of  the  way  in  which  sexes  originated 
coordinates  itself  with  the  Bible  account.  The 
story  of  the  rib  has  been  often  ridiculed  as 
the  acme  of  nonsense,  but  the  old  Scripture 
writer  was  wrong  only  in  the  names  and  de- 
tails. His  Adam's  scientific  name  is  Amoeba. 
The  rib  out  of  which  Eve  was  made  was  not 
bone  but  protoplasm,  and  it  was  Amoeba's 
whole  side,  not  a  part  of  it,  out  of  which  she 
was  taken.  But  the  reason  for  it  given  by 
evolution  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of 
Scripture,  that  it  was  not  good  for  Adam,  even 
in  his  amoebic  state,  to  be  alone,  and  the  ulti- 
mate purpose  was  the  same  as  that  given  by 
Christianity,  that  these  twain  should  be  again 
one  flesh. 

But  while  thus  recognizing  the  rapture  and 
romance  of  love  between  the  sexes,  and  the  holi- 
ness into  which  it  finally  climbs,  it  is  to  be  rec- 
ognized, also,  that  this  is  not  its  highest  form ; 
their    paradise,    not    its    truest    heaven ;    their 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       1£7 

intercourse  not  all  which  is  needed  to  make 
man  a  family  and  earth  a  home.  The  love  of 
the  parent  for  the  child,  and  preeminently  the 
love  of  the  mother  for  her  babe,  that  is  where 
it  takes  its  richest  hues,  that  where  it  rises  to  be 
the  type  of  what  Deity  feels,  that  where  it  builds 
the  walls  and  kindles  the  fires  and  puts  on  the 
roof  of  a  family  and  a  home.  Whence  does 
this  form  of  it  come?  How  direct  and  clear 
the  evidence  that  this,  also,  is  evolved  naturally 
out  of  life  and,  what  is  more,  out  of  animal 
life.  When  the  two  sexes  unite  in  transmitting 
life  to  their  offspring,  it  is  a  part  of  each 
other  and  of  themselves  that  they  transmit, 
and  inevitably,  therefore,  the  love  they  have 
for  each  other  and  for  themselves  goes  with  it, 
constituting  parental  love,  and  as  the  off- 
spring was  first  in  the  form  of  an  egg  and  then 
of  a  babe,  they  were  moved  by  their  love  and 
love's  desire  to  protect  its  weakness  to  provide 
it  with  some  kind  of  nest.  That  nest,  that 
shelter, — I  never  see  one  now  that  I  do  not 
reverence  it, — rough  and  rude  as  it  was,  was  the 
beginning  of  a  long  line  of  abodes  whose  far- 
ther end  is  the  stately  mansions  of  civilization, 
nay,  rather,  is  that  great  house  of  many  man- 
sions into  which,  as  offspring  of  the  Eternal 
Parent,  our  souls  are  a1  List  to  be  gathered. 
"What  makes  you  call  that  house  your  home?" 


128      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

asked  a  gentleman,  quizzing  a  little  boy  who 
was  just  returning  from  school;  "it  looks  just 
like  the  houses  where  all  the  other  folks  live." 
"Because,"  replied  the  bo}^  puzzled  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  pointing  to  the  window  where 
he  caught  sight  of  his  mother  looking  out  for 
him, — "because  she  lives  there !"  And  there 
have  been  myriads  of  children  clad  in  feathers 
and  fur  and  unable  to  express  it  in  articulate 
words,  that  have  known  what  theirs  was  by  the 
same  sign. 

Then  the  care  and  devotion  of  animal  par- 
ents to  their  young;  who  can  fail  to  recognize 
in  them  the  beginning,  nay,  often  the  full  rich 
growth,  of  those  very  qualities  which  make  the 
wonder  of  human  parental  love?  When  the 
female  monkey  brushes  away  the  flies  from  her 
sleeping  babe,  and  later  applies  a  stick  to  the 
appropriate  part  of  his  person  to  guide  him 
into  good  behavior,  or  when  the  paternal  ba- 
boon plants  himself  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  all 
night,  to  keep  leopards  and  tigers  away  from 
the  mother  baboon  sleeping  with  her  infant 
child  in  the  branches  up  above,  who  shall  say 
that  the  hair  on  their  bodies  makes  even  a  hair's 
difference  between  the  nature  of  their  affec- 
tions and  that  of  the  human  beings  who,  for 
their  offspring,  do  the  same  things?  I  read, 
awhile  ago,  of  a  gentleman  whose  land  was  over- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       129 

run  with  prairie-dogs,  and  who  attempted  to 
drown  them  out.  As  he  stood  watching  the 
proceeding  a  little  prairie-dog  mother  came 
rushing  back  to  a  hole  near  him  where  her 
young  had  been  left,  and  diving  into  it  all 
flooded  with  water,  brought  up  one  of  the 
young  ones  and  laid  it  at  his  feet.  Returning 
fearlessly  she  brought  up  another,  and  then  a 
third.  A  fourth  time  she  went  down,  but  this 
was  too  much ;  she  never  came  up,  sacrificing 
her  own  life  for  that  of  her  offspring.  The 
same  day,  or  soon  after,  I  read  of  a  human 
mother  whose  house  caught  on  fire,  and  who 
rushed  in  three  times  to  save  as  many  of  her 
little  ones,  and  who  going  the  fourth  time  per- 
ished in  the  smoke  and  flame,  sacrificing:  her  life 
for  those  of  her  offspring.  Did  the  fact  that 
one  did  it  on  four  feet,  and  the  other  on  two 
make  any  difference  in  the  love  which  moved 
the  feet  to  go?  A  little  King  Charles  spaniel 
carried  into  one  of  those  hells  of  cruelty  which 
Christianity  yet  allows  vivisection  to  make  on 
earth, — worse,  I  sometimes  think,  than  devils 
ever  thought  of  down  below, — gave  birth,  right 
in  the  midst  of  her  being  cut  up  alive,  to  two 
puppies;  and,  forgetful  of  self,  with  her 
breasts  severed,  her  hind  legs  and  back  para- 
lyzed, and  the  unspeakable  pain  of  peritonitis 
racking  every  nerve,  began  at  once  her  care  of 


130      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

them,  her  last  act  being  to  lick  with  her  tongue 
what  with  her  mangled  breasts  she  could  not 
feed.  Which  now,  if  love  is  indeed  a  specially 
human  attribute,  must  we  call  the  real  brute, 
the  dog  which  so  died,  or  the  eminent  scientist 
who  so  inflicted  the  death?  And  what  are 
these  and  the  myriad  other  like  stories  that 
the  records  of  the  world's  lower  life  are  full  of, 
some  having  their  prototypes  even  in  the  vege- 
table world,  but  proofs  that  the  family  tree 
is  all  one  and  that  what  the  human  baby  finds 
in  its  home  at  the  top  was  branched  to,  along 
its  growth  by  baby  beast  and  baby  bird ! 

Sexual  and  parental  love  are  doubtless  the 
earliest  and  the  deepest-rooted  of  all  love's 
forms,  but  they  are  necessarily  limited  and 
narrow  in  their  range,  and  are  very  far  from 
showing  the  whole  of  its  capacities.  There  is 
a  form  of  it  which  goes  out  wider  and  farther 
than  any  of  these,  and  which  takes  in  at  last 
the  whole  of  the  human  race,  nay,  farther  still, 
and  takes  in  all  living  things ;  a  form  of  it 
which  is  to  the  love  of  sex  and  offspring  what 
gravity  is  to  the  attractions  of  chemistry  and 
cohesion.  It  is  a  love  which  is  often  thought 
to  be  exclusively  human,  and  the  product,  even 
in  man,  of  a  supernatural  religion.  The 
cruelty  and  antagonism  of  animals  and  na- 
tions and  races  to  each  other,  and  their  mutual 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       131 

slaughter  and  struggle  for  existence  as  the 
only  way  of  their  living  at  all,  are  pointed  out 
as  evidence  that  this  love  could  never  have 
originated  out  of  life,  and  that  hate  is  their 
natural  condition.  And  the  immense  gulf  be- 
tween egoism  and  altruism,  care  for  self  and 
care  for  others,  the  one  pulling  in  one  direc- 
tion and  the  other  the  opposite  way,  is  empha- 
sized as  too  wide  for  any  natural  evolution 
ever  to  have  leaped. 

There  is  no  denying  these  antagonisms  as 
they  now  are  and  for  ages  have  been ;  but  go- 
ing back  to  where  life  started,  and  is  ever  and 
ever  restarting,  we  find  that  the  sides  of  the 
gulf  are  so  near  that  even  a  microscopic  cell 
spans  their  space.  When  that  first  cell  di- 
vided, it  was  not  out  of  any  hate  or  rivalry, 
but  because  each  division  in  doing  so,  could  get 
more  food,  and  each  was  a  part  of  one  common 
self.  Later,  when  parenthood  came  in  and  the 
first  child  was  produced,  what  was  it?  An- 
other self,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  an  exten- 
sion of  the  parental  self.  What  the  parent 
did  for  it,  therefore,  it  did  for  its  own  larger 
self.  That  is  where  altruism  came  into  the 
world.  It  was  a  part  and  parcel  of  egoism, 
was  a  direct  outcome  of  life.  And  then,  when 
other  offspring  were  produced,  what  was  their 
relation  to  each  other?     Why,  that  of  natural 


132      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

brothers.     With    their   multiplied    descendants 
came  the  swarm,  the  flock,  the  herd,  the  tribe, 
their    members    all    naturally    related    to    each 
other.     Early  association,  common  tastes,  mu- 
tual assistance  in   getting  food,   and,  what  is 
not  to  be  forgotten,  even  the  assaults  and  an- 
tagonisms of  other  tribes,  as  their  separations 
became  wider  and  there  was  need  among  them- 
selves of  closer  union;  all  helped  to  strengthen 
in  knots,  here  and  there,  the  tie  of  a  common 
brotherhood.     Among    animals    it    was    largely 
a  social  instinct,  not  rising  into  what  is  prop- 
erly  love;   but   even   in   their   ranks   instances 
are  not  wanting  of  those  altruistic  qualities  in 
it,    which    are    foregleams    of   nature's    coming 
full  humanitarian  day.     What  farmer  has  not 
seen  instances,  out  in  his  barnyard,  of  a  genuine 
Damon  and  Pythias  friendship,  among  animals, 
sometimes  those  of  different  species,  that  was 
simply  an  enjoyment  of  each  other's  company 
untainted    with    one    particle    of    self-interest? 
A  rat  is  not  an  animal  that  we  very  much  re- 
spect;   but   when   two    clear-sighted   ones   were 
observed,  as  was  the  case  awhile  ago,  leading 
an  old   gray  blind  one   carefully  down  to  the 
water    for   a    drink,    what    is    it   but   the    seed 
planted  in  our  common  life-soil  far  below  hu- 
manity,   which   blossoms    at   last   up    above    in 
our  civilized  blind  asylums?     There  are  many 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       133 

Christian  people  who  think  the  doctrine  of 
their  relationship  with  monkeys  and  baboons 
degrading;  but  when  a  mother  monkey  adopts 
and  cares  for  a  whole  group  of  little  orphan 
monkeys,  and  a  troop  of  baboons  is  attacked 
by  dogs  and  all  escape  to  the  hills  but  a  young 
one  which  mounts  a  rock  and  cries  for  help, 
and  a  stout  old  baboon  heroically  comes  back, 
facing  the  whole  pack  of  hounds,  and  bears 
him  away  in  safety,  where  is  there  a  true 
mother's  or  hero's  heart  that  does  not  in- 
stinctively pay  its  tribute  of  honor  to  such 
deeds  as  having  in  them  the  very  accent  of 
altruistic  affection?  Sometimes  the  contrast 
between  a  brute's  conduct  to  others  and  that 
of  a  human  being  is  very  much  to  the  credit 
of  the  brute ;  as  in  that  case  out  on  a  Kentucky 
frontier  where  two  babes,  lost  out  in  the  woods 
over  night,  were  found  by  the  searchers  the 
next  morning,  being  nursed  along  with  her  own 
cubs,  by  a  she-bear,  which  foster-mother  they 
at  once  shot.  Self-sacrifice  for  others,  giving 
up  voluntarily  one's  own  life  to  save  theirs,  is 
justly  regarded  as  the  crowning  evidence  of 
humanitarian  love,  but,  as  a  little  girl,  in  a 
Michigan  town,  was  passing  on  her  way  to 
school  through  a  stretch  of  forest,  she  was 
met  by  a  huge  cougar,  six  or  seven  feet  long, 
which   would   undoubtedly   have   eaten   her   up, 


134<     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

had  not  a  small  dog,  hardly  a  foot  in  length, 
flown  to  her  rescue,  being  torn  to  pieces  him- 
self, but  giving  her  a  chance  to  escape ;  an  act 
the  more  striking  because  he  was  not  the 
child's  dog,  but  one  which  had  followed  her 
from  the  post-office,  and  so  must  have  done  it 
out  of  pure  regard  for  her  as  a  human  being. 
And  what  are  all  such  things — mere  specimens 
of  what  animal  history  is  full  of — but  proofs 
that  love  in  its  essence  is  all  one,  and  that  one 
the  direct  outcome  of  life ;  that  what  the  poet 
sings  in  songs  and  the  lover  lisps  in  vows,  and 
the  mother  feels  in  babes,  and  the  martyr 
shows  in  racks  and  stakes,  are  but  variations 
of  what  the  plant  blooms  with  in  flowers  and 
fruit,  and  the  animal  rises  to  in  nests  and 
lairs  ;  proofs,  too,  that  Jesus  was  scientifically 
correct  when  he  said:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself,"  recognizing  self  as  the 
natural  and  normal  starting  point  of  love,  or 
as  Pope  puts  it 

"Self-love  but  serves  the  virtuous  mind  to  wake, 
As  the  small  pebble  stirs  the  peaceful  lake. 
The  center  moved,  a  circle  straight  succeeds; 
Another  still  and  still  another  spreads. 
Friend,  parent,  neighbor  first  it  will  embrace, 
His  country  next,  and  next  the  human  race," 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LOVE       135 

Love  is  the  staple  of  all  novels  and  is  sup- 
posed especially  to  have  an  affinity  for  fiction 
as  its  garb,  but  was  there  a  novel  ever  written 
so  romantic  in  its  rise,  so  dramatic  in  its  inci- 
dents  and  so  wonderful  and  unexpected  in  its 
denouement,    as    this    story    of    love    itself    set 
forth  in  sober  scientific   fact?     It  is   the  very 
child  of  life;  and  to  get  them  both  not  super- 
naturally  from  Deity  and  the  spirit  world,  but 
naturally    from    animal    and    earth,    instead    of 
degrading    them,     as     some    have     thought, — 
what  is  it  but  adding  to  their  might  and  mar- 
vel?     To   drop   them   out   of  heaven  were   easy 
and     commonplace; — to     raise     them     out     of 
earth,   there  is   wonder,   there   an   act  which   is 
worthy  of  a  God.     It  is  an  origin  which  does 
not  drag  them  down,  but  lifts  their  source  up, 
makes    dust    divine,    matter    mystery,     nature 
miracle;  is  a  putting  a  power  on  this  near  earth 
that    we    once    thought    was    in    far-off    skies. 
And  with  life  and  love  thus  bound  together  at 
their   very   birth   here    in    time,   who   shall    say 
there  is   any  eternity  in  which   they  arc  likely 
ever  to  be  parted;  and  with  the  wonderful  prog- 
ress they  have  made  together  in  the  past,  what 
Hebrew  prophet  ever  uttered  promise  more  in- 
spiring as  to  the  heights  they  may  united  rise 
to,  in  the  eons  yet  to  come? 


VIII 
THE   EVOLUTION   OF   SOCIETY 

The  subject  of  my  last  lecture  was  the  evo- 
lution of  love  in  its  various  phases  out  of  life, 
— self-love,  sex-love,  family-love  and  race-love; 
and  now,  as  coming  naturally  next  in  order, 
I  take  up  the  evolution  of  society,  a  manifes- 
tation of  life  in  which  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween its  parts,  while  akin  to  love,  is  more 
directly  self-interest,  cooperation  and  compan- 
ionship. 

It  is  a  subject  whose  importance  can  hardly 
be  stated  in  terms  which  are  too  strong. 
Everybody,  to  be  sure,  has  moods  in  which  he 
wants  to  be  alone, — ought,  now  and  then,  to  find 
in  his  own  thoughts  good  company, — reaches, 
perhaps,  the  climax  of  his  being  when  he  can 
stand  up,  and,  in  all  the  grand  meaning  of  that 
little  word,  can  say  7.  There  is  usually  a  time, 
also,  in  his  experience,  when  the  presence  of  one 
other  person  is  enough  for  his  happiness,  a 
time  when  he  would  very  much  rather  have  no 
one  but  her  around,  not  even  her  old  father, 
136 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      137 

or  dear  mother,  or  mischievous  young  brother, 
and  when  he  thinks  that  with  her  a  desert  isle 
would  be  a  sevenfold  heaven.  And  again,  there 
is  the  possibility  of  finding  for  awhile  a  de- 
lightful companionship  with  nature  and  nat- 
ural objects, — 

"A  pleasure  in  the  pathless  woods, 

A  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore, 
Society  where  none  intrudes, 

By  the  deep  sea  and  music  in  its  roar." 

But  in  his  deepest  nature  and  his  most  endur- 
ing wants,  man  is  preeminently  a  social  being. 

Other  relations   are  to  him  the  luxuries, the 

moonshine,  cake  and  poetry  of  life ;  but  society 
he  has  to  have  as  the  necessities, — the  sunlight, 
the  daily  bread  and  the  sober  prose,  of  ex- 
istence. It  is  only  in  connection  with  his  fel- 
low creatures  that  he  can  rise  up  into  his 
highest  individuality,  only  by  first  dwelling  in 
society  that  he  can  really  enjoy  nature.  A 
babe  growing  to  maturity  in  the  woods,  grows 
only  to  be  a  mature  brute, — never  learns  even 
to  speak;  while  a  man  left,  like  Enoch  Arden, 
wholly  to  himself,  sinks,  even  amid  the  grandest 

natural    surroundings,    into    abject    misery, 

exclaims,  as  Cowper  makes  Alexander  Selkirk, 
"O  Solitude,  where  are  the  charms 
That  sages  have  seen  in  thy  face! 


138      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Better  dwell  in  the  midst  of  alarms 
Than  reign  in  this  horrible  place." 

And  in  the  world  at  large,  it  is  society  alone 
which  has  made  civilization  and  progress  pos- 
sible, its  millions  of  common  men  doing  with 
their  differentiation  and  cooperation  what  one 
man,  with  all  their  brains  and  hands  heaped  to- 
gether, never  could;  and  its  multiplied  institu- 
tions being  the  mighty  bowl  in  which  the 
inventions  and  discoveries  of  one  generation, 
dipped  up  from  the  spring  of  thought,  are 
handed  down,  amid  the  continual  deaths  of  their 
original  holders,  in  ever-increasing  amounts  to 
the   generations   that  are  their   followers. 

It  is  a  subject  preeminently  which  every 
young  person  coming  now  on  the  stage  of  ac- 
tion ought  to  know  something  about.  The 
great  saving  hope  of  mankind  hitherto  has  been 
theology,  the  science  of  man's  relations  to  God 
and  the  spirit  world.  The  great  saving  hope 
of  mankind  in  our  day  is  sociology,  the  science 
of  man's  relations  to  his  brother-man  and  to 
the  social  world.  Nine-tenths  of  the  problems 
that  we  all  have  to  meet  as  we  go  out  into  life 
are  social  problems.  The  air  is  filled  with  won- 
derful socialistic  schemes  for  the  improvement 
of  man's  condition  here  on  earth.  All  busi- 
ness, all  politics,  all  reform  are  social  matters. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      139 

And  to  act  intelligently  with  reference  to  any 
of  these  interests,  everybody  needs  to  know 
something  of  the  origin,  nature  and  history  of 
the  great  institution  out  of  which  they  grow. 

What  is  society?  It  is  made  up  of  indi- 
viduals, and  in  the  confusion  with  reference  to 
the  subject  which  once  prevailed,  it  was 
thought  these  were  all.  But  a  collection  of 
individuals  merely,  as  in  a  railroad  car,  around 
a  street  fight,  or  at  a  ballroom,  even  though 
the  individuals  be  those  of  a  university  fra- 
ternity or  a  New  York's  Four  Hundred,  do  not 
of  themselves  constitute  society  any  more  than 
a  thousand  bricks  constitute  a  house.  They 
must  have  some  permanent  relations  to  each 
other,  must  be  organized,  and  each  contribute 
something  to  the  common  good,  in  order  to  have 
anything  of  the  real  distinctive  social  quality. 

Then,  secondly,  it  is  not  an  artificial  but  a 
natural  organism,  is  not  something  which  men 
have  intentionally  put  together  as  they  do  a 
factory  or  a  watch,  but  is  something  which  has 
grown  up  of  itself  by  the  action  of  man's  own 
interior  unconscious  life  force,  as  the  solar 
system,  the  earth  and  the  whole  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms  have.  It  is  a  distinction  of 
the  most  vital  importance,  and  it  is  one  that 
Mr.  Spencer  and  the  evolution  philosophy  are 
to  have  the  credit,  if  not  of  first  teaching,  yet 


140      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

at  any  rate  of  calling  attention  to,  and  making 
one  of  the  most  precious  parts  of  their  great 
system.  It  was  the  old  idea  that  society  was 
intentionally  and  artificially  put  together,  an 
idea  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  Plato's  "Repub- 
lic," and  Hobbe's  "Leviathan"  and  Rousseau's 
famous  "Social  Contract."  It  supposes  that  men 
were  originally  only  individuals,  most  of  them 
barbarian  individuals,  and  that  once  on  a  time 
they  came  together  and  said,  "Go  to  now,  let 
us  unite  and  be  a  society,"  and  that  from  that 
time  henceforth  a  society  there  was.  A  great 
deal  of  the  same  nonsense  prevails  now.  Men 
confound  states  with  society;  think  that  be- 
cause they  can  change  politics,  they  can  change 
principles ;  because  they  make  the  laws  of  na- 
tions they  can  make  those  of  nature,  forget- 
ting how  small  a  part  of  society  the  state  is. 
And  nearly  all  the  socialistic  schemes  the  world 
is  so  full  of  to-day,  Mr.  Bellamy's,  for  in- 
stance, are  based  on  the  idea  that  society  is 
like  an  old  house  needing  only  its  worn-out 
structure  torn  down,  and  plenty  of  lumber  and 
carpenter's  tools  and  a  modern  architect  carted 
to  its  site,  to  have  a  new  one  in  a  year  or  two 
rise  up  in  its  place. 

There  is  no  denying  that  man  has  the  power 
to  cooperate  with  nature  in  promoting  social 
growth,  but  it  is  only  to  modify,  not  remake, 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      141 

only  as  he  has  power  to  cultivate  and  improve 
the  apple-trees  and  pear-trees  of  his  garden, 
not  cut  them  down  and  build  new  ones  with 
other  wood  and  flowers  and  fruit;  only  as  he 
has  power  to  dress  and  feed  and  develop  his 
own  body  obeying  its  laws,  not  to  take  it  apart 
and  make  it  over  again,  conforming  it  to  a 
pattern  he  himself  has  devised.  What  we  need 
to  recognize  is  that  the  social  tree  is  a  living 
organism,  that  it  did  not  have  to  wait  for 
philosophers  and  politicians  and  legislative 
halls  and  dress  coats  and  Easter  bonnets  to 
come  along  before  it  could  appear  on  earth, 
but  that  it  began  with  life  itself,  and  is  what 
can  no  more  be  cut  down  and  made  over  afresh 
than  could  the  solar  system,  or  the  human 
body,  or  the  whole  animal  and  vegetable  king- 
doms. 

Going  back  to  its  origin,  when  nature's  first 
protoplasmic  cells  in  growing,  divided  and  be- 
came two  cells, — as  we  found  to  be  the  process  in 
all  growth, — while  some  of  them  wholly  divided 
and  became  separate  creatures,  others  clung  to- 
gether as  parts  of  one  creature,  and  gradually 
differentiated  themselves  into  its  various  organs 
and  performed  its  various  kinds  of  work.  All 
organic  bodies  are  really  societies  of  cells,  co- 
operating with  each  other  for  the  common  good. 
Their  food  is  simply  great  companies  of  other 


142      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

cells  going  along  in  the  blood  to  take  the  place 
of  the  older  ones  which  have  been  used  up. 
They  are  free  at  first,  but  as  soon  as  they  have 
joined  their  different  organizations,  bones, 
brain,  muscles,  heart  and  so  on,  have  as  little 
will  of  their  own  as  the  members  have  of  a  labor 
organization.  The  social  system  of  the  in- 
dividual physical  body  is  that  of  an  absolute 
monarchy  in  which  the  individual  cell  life  is 
wholly  dominated  by  the  larger  common  life, 
each  cell  going  to  brain  or  foot,  heart  or  en- 
trails exactly  as  it  is  sent.  Ordinarily  it  is  a 
contented  kingdom,  each  subject  by  his  obedi- 
ence and  cooperation  getting  more  comfort 
than  he  could  alone,  and  the  whole  having  the 
same  efficiency,  as  compared  with  what  its  cells 
acting  separately  would  have,  that  a  disciplined 
army  has  in  comparison  with  a  mob.  But  now 
and  then  difficulty  occurs.  Too  much  work  or 
too  little  pay  or  the  wrong  food  is  given  some 
of  the  cells.  The  dominating  life  gets  idiotic 
or  overbearing,  and  perhaps  a  lot  of  outside 
bacteria  come  in  as  walking  delegates  and  stir 
up  trouble ;  and  then  sickness  follows.  That  is 
what  sickness  is,  the  cells  of  the  individual  social 
body  getting  up  a  rebellion,  going  off  on  a 
strike.  Setting  up  for  themselves  an  inde- 
pendent life.  Usually  it  is  an  entirely  justi- 
fiable proceeding ;  and  the  true  remedy  is  not  to 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      143 

introduce  scab  labor  in  the  shape  of  medicines, 
or  call  out  the  military  in  the  shape  of  the 
surgeon's  knife,  but  simply  to  do  the  cells 
justice  by  giving  them  better  food,  shorter 
hours  of  labor  and  an  improved  boss-life,  a 
wisdom  that  might  well  be  imitated  in  dealing 
with  the  workmen  of  the  world's  larger  social 
body. 

But  nature's  aim  was  to  make  these  little 
condensed  monarchial  societies  only  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  something  else.  As  they  became 
more  developed  and  began  to  produce  their  off- 
spring by  the  union  of  sexes,  another  and 
higher  set  of  social  relations  was  evolved.  The 
offspring,  instead  of  being  joined  with  each 
other  physically,  as  the  cells  are,  remained 
separate  individuals,  and  were  joined  together 
by  an  invisible  social  tie,  first  as  families,  and 
then  as  they  multiplied  and  spread  out,  into 
swarms,  herds,  flocks,  tribes,  nations  and  races. 

The  family  was  thus  the  beginning  of  what 
is  properly  society,  growing,  as  you  see, 
naturally  and  inevitably  out  of  increasing  life ; 
and  the  social  body  differed  from  the  physical 
body  at  the  start,  only  in  the  fact  that  while  the 
one  in  growing  kept  its  growing  parts  phys- 
ically united,  the  other  in  growing  kept  them 
physically  separate  and  united  only  with  a 
spiritual  tie.     It  is  a  parellelism,  as  Mr.  Spencer 


144     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

says,  which  is  not  to  be  pressed  too  far,  but 
one  that  in  some  respects  is  wonderfully  exact. 
Individuals  are  simply  the  cells  of  the  great 
social  body.  What  are  differentiated  in  the  one 
as  bones,  brain,  muscles,  arteries,  nerves,  viscera 
and  senses,  are  differentiated  in  the  other  as 
chiefs,  classes,  occupations,  workshops,  roads, 
telegraphs,  post-offices,  sewers,  schoolrooms  and 
churches.  As  physical  growth  is  accomplished 
by  the  division  of  its  cells  and  clusters  of  cells, 
so  social  growth  is  accomplished  by  the  enlarge- 
ment and  then  division  of  its  individuals  and 
clusters  of  individuals.  Even  the  physical 
methods  of  reproduction  by  budding,  germ- 
budding  and  mating,  have  their  social  analogues 
in  the  planting  of  colonies,  the  addition  to  the 
state  of  outlying  territories,  and  the  inter- 
mingling of  different  tribes  by  emigration  and 
conquest.  Social  life  itself  is,  like  physical  life, 
the  continual  readjustment  by  its  own  forces  of 
internal  to  external  relations  ;  is  kept  up  in  the 
social  body  by  the  constant  using  up  and  dying 
off  of  its  individual  members,  as  it  is  in  the 
physical  body  by  the  constant  using  up  and 
dying  off  of  its  cell-members.  And  as  regards 
rebellions  and  strikes  and  mobs  and  anarchies 
and  crimes,  what  are  they  but  the  fevers  and 
sores  and  consumptions  and  inflammations  and 
diarrhoeas    of    society,    caused   by   the    oppres- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      145 

sions,  bad  foods,  poor  wages,  injustices  and  ig- 
norances of  the  social  body  as  a  whole,  needing 
therefore,  like  a  sick  man,  not  so  much 
violent  medicines  and  sharp  bayonet  thrusts, 
as  a  more  thorough  social  pathology  and  a 
better  application  of  social  sanitary  laws. 
But,  while  recognizing  the  parallelism  in  these 
respects,  there  is  this  very  important  difference 
between  the  two,  that  while  the  dominating  life 
of  the  animal  body  is  in  it  as  a  whole,  the  dom- 
inating life  of  the  social  body  is  in  its  parts. 
Society  has  no  one  brain,  or  stomach  or  heart, 
but  does  its  work  by  the  consensus  of  its  many 
brains,  stomachs  and  hearts.  Most  important 
of  all,  while  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  animal 
organism  to  lessen  the  individuality  and  free- 
dom of  the  cells  and  make  the  perfection  of  the 
body  its  supreme  aim,  the  tendency  of  the  social 
organism  is  to  increase  the  individuality  and 
freedom  of  its  members  and  to  make  the  per- 
fection of  its  distinct  personal  parts  the  su- 
preme thing,  yet  with  man  as  their  center  both 
uniting  most  wonderfully,  even  along  these  con- 
tradictory ways,  in  promoting  his  individuality. 
Viewing  society  as  thus  a  natural  organism 
differentiated  from  the  physical  body  and 
starting  as  a  family,  its  first  function  in  evolv- 
ing must  evidently  have  been  to  provide  itself 
with  food,  clothing  and  shelter,  articles  which 


146      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

in  its  primitive  state,  both  among  animals  and 
man,  it  doubtless  gathered  direct  from  nature, 
and,  except  with  its  young,  each  one  wholly  for 
himself  alone.  But  with  the  increase  of  itself 
and  other  families,  there  necessarily  arose  after 
awhile  a  competition  between  them  as  to  which 
should  have  the  most  of  what  was  too  little  for 
all,  a  competition  which,  sooner  or  later,  led  to 
fights,  which  fights  in  their  turn,  while  sepa- 
rating species  from  species  and  tribe  from  tribe, 
tended  to  unite  more  closely,  as  their  only  means 
of  success,  those  that  were  of  the  same  species 
and  the  same  tribe.  At  first  all  members  of  the 
species  and  tribe  would  take  part  in  the  fight; 
but  among  human  beings  this  could  not  last. 
The  fighters  had  to  have  food  and  weapons  to 
carry  on  a  long  war;  those  which  had  them 
most  abundantly,  as  in  our  Civil  War,  being 
most  likely  to  triumph ;  so  a  differentiation  took 
place,  some  remaining  at  home  to  gather  food 
and  shape  weapons,  while  others  went  forth  to 
use  them  in  the  field.  Thus  we  have  the  origin 
of  those  two  great  systems,  the  military  and  the 
industrial,  which  ever  since  have  been  such 
prominent  features  in  all  human  society,  and 
out  of  which,  as  with  the  exoderm  and  endoderm 
of  the  animal  body,  all  its  other  organs  are 
found  to  grow. 

At  first  the  tribe  was  nomadic,  exhausting  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      147 

food  in  one  locality,  and  then  moving  to  an- 
other, but  as  industries,  wealth  and  strength 
increased,  it  found  it  desirable  and  possible  to 
settle  down  in  the  better  places  as  permanent 
abodes  where  larger  houses  could  be  built  and 
stronger  defenses  put  up,  so  towns  and  villages 
arose. 

For  a  long  period  all  property,  consisting  as 
it  did  of  weapons  and  utensils,  flocks  and  herds, 
which  all  in  common  had  helped  in  producing, 
was  by  all  in  common  owned  and  used.  But 
with  a  fixed  abode  and  more  numbers,  more  in- 
dustries sprang  up,  and  more  property  was  ac- 
quired ;  one  man  got  a  facility  for  doing  one 
thing  and  another  another ;  one  was  industrious 
and  another  lazy ;  and  in  the  end  each  naturally 
wanted  what  was  best  fitted  to  his  person  and 
his  family  and  into  which  he  had  put  the  most 
work ;  so  private  ownership  came  in,  and  with  it 
that  difference  between  the  rich  and  the  poor 
which  has  become  such  a  conspicuous  and,  to 
many,  such  a  terrible  feature  in  society  as  it  is 
to-day. 

With  the  facility  that  the  skilful  and  in- 
dustrious acquired  for  doing  some  things  better 
than  others,  they  inevitably  accumulated  more 
of  some  than  they  needed,  and  less  of  others,  so 
they  exchanged  products  and  trade  was  started. 
At  first  the  trade  was  only  among  neighbors, 


148     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

but  towns,  countries,  nations  were  so  situated 
as  to  produce  some  things  the  others  lacked ;  so 
commerce  followed,  involving  ships,  wagons, 
roads,  canals,  post-offices,  telegraphs, — all  that 
vast  network  of  intercommunication  that  is  the 
veins,  arteries  and  nerves  of  the  social  body  in 
our  time;  involving,  also,  on  the  one  side 
cheating,  lying,  taxes,  tariffs,  money,  gold- 
bugs,  silverites,  and  cut-throat  competition, 
and  on  the  other  side,  still  more  largely,  honesty, 
acquaintance  with  other  countries,  human- 
itarianism,  toleration,  free  trade,  the  desire  for 
peace,  and  leisure  for  the  culture  of  letters, 
art  and  science.  At  the  beginning  of  society 
the  father  as  the  strongest  and  wisest,  was 
naturally  its  leader  both  in  peace  and  war ;  but, 
when  he  died,  his  ablest  and  bravest  son 
would  become  its  chief  in  war,  and  when  the  war 
was  over  and  he  returned  a  conqueror,  its  chief 
also  in  peace,  bringing  with  him  a  warrior's 
method  of  personal  command ;  thus  government 
arose,  and  a  government  which  at  the  start  was 
inevitably  despotic.  That  is  what  war  always 
means,  despotism.  You  cannot  fight  battles 
with  town-meetings,  or  capture  forts  with 
ballots ;  and  whenever  a  nation  has  an  army, 
down  must  go  the  people  and  up  again  the 
potentate.  But  in  the  course  of  time  many 
strong  men  arose,  some  in  other  arts  than  those 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      149 

of  war,  who  as  counsellors  and  administrators 
shared  in  the  government.  The  people,  also,  of 
the  little  towns  and  villages  got  together  in 
town  meetings,  and  the  tradesmen  of  cities  in 
guilds  and  clubs,  and  talked  over  their  local 
interests  and  made  rules  for  their  own  especial 
assemblies.  This  was  a  most  important  step, 
for  town  meetings  and  voluntary  unions,  so 
powerless  on  battlefields,  are  the  very  seeds  of 
power  in  times  of  peace.  So  little  by  little, 
amid  awful  scenes  of  revolution  and  confusion, 
monarchies  were  undermined,  and  in  place  of  one 
man's  will,  government  was  carried  on  by  the 
many's  law. 

While  a  part  of  the  people  increased  in 
virtue,  peacefulness  and  civilization,  others 
lagged  behind,  kept  something  of  their  old 
vices,  violence  and  savagery.  That  is  what 
makes  evil,  the  rise,  not  the  fall  of  humanity ; 
and  as  a  result  laws  had  to  be  made  to  punish 
wrong-doing ;  and  to  enforce  the  laws,  society 
had  to  inaugurate  its  police,  constables,  courts, 
juries,  jails  and  hangmen. 

There  are  a  myriad  little  matters  of  social 
intercourse,  however,  that  law  cannot  attend  to, 
and  these  from  the  very  start  were  regulated 
by  custom,  fashion,  convenience,  good  sense 
and  public  opinion,  and  they  gave  rise  even- 
tually   to    courtesy,    manners,    politeness,    eti- 


150      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

quette,  all  those  graces  which  lubricate  life  and 
constitute  what  is  called  good  society. 

Women  at  first  were  the  mates  of  the  whole 
tribe  alike,  and  marriage  probably  came  in 
through  capture  and  purchase,  each  man  feel- 
ing he  had  an  exclusive  right  to  what  he  had 
dragged  at  the  risk  of  his  life  from  another 
tribe,  or  paid  her  parents  for  in  pelt  and  prov- 
ender. The  marriage  ring  that  ladies  wear  so 
proudly  now,  is  a  remnant  of  the  marriage 
shackles  they  wore  ages  ago,  and  what  to-day 
are  figuratively  called  marriage  bonds  were 
once  very  literal  bindings.  Women  with  their 
children  to  bear  and  bring  up,  naturally  made 
home  their  sphere,  developing  in  its  quiet  those 
gentler  graces  and  attractions  which  have  been 
such  a  power  in  softening  and  elevating  society ; 
chose  their  husbands  when  choice  came,  because 
of  their  strength  in  giving  them  protection, 
while  the  husbands  chose  their  wives  as  they 
could,  because  of  their  beauty,  which  explains 
why  men  are  so  strong  and  ugly,  and  women  so 
weak  and  lovely.  But  with  the  da}s  of  danger 
passing  away,  and  women  able  to  go  freely  out 
into  the  world  and  share  in  its  work,  their  nat- 
ural equality  will  come  back,  and  with  their 
fewer  vices  than  men,  the  pendulum  may  swing 
the  other  way,  and  they  for  awhile  be  the 
superior  sex  in  giving  society  its  coming  shape. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      151 

The  evolutions  of  mind,  morals  and  religion 
are  so  unique  and  important  as  to  deserve 
special  lectures;  but  let  me  say  briefly  that 
they  are  very  largely  social  growths.  Man's 
great  struggle  for  existence  was  the  nurse  not 
only  of  bodily  strength,  but  still  more  of  intel- 
lectual keenness  and  power.  So  with  morals. 
Men,  in  order  to  live  together,  must  have  fore- 
bearance,  fair  dealing,  self-restraint,  and  some 
degree  of  veracity,  self-sacrifice  and  regard  for 
each  other's  rights.  Morality  is  simply  the 
law  of  social  health,  as  hygiene  is  of  bodily 
health,  ever  enlarging  as  society  grows  more 
complex,  and  in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  killing 
off  those  who  disobey  its  laws,  and  preserving, 
as  the  fittest  to  survive,  those  by  whom  they  are 
kept.  And  as  regards  religion,  while  it  began 
in  the  individual  soul,  it  has  been  in  its  develop- 
ment preeminently  a  social  quality,  instituted 
at  a  very  early  date ;  its  special  rites  and  cere- 
monies dominated  the  world  for  ages  through 
fear,  blossomed  with  the  brightening  centuries 
here  and  there  into  love,  and  while  doing  some- 
thing to  shape  society,  has  been  in  its  doctrines, 
its  liberties,  its  organizations,  and  its  rituals, 
an  outcome  how  largely  of  society's  own  ever- 
increasing  growth. 

That   the   hasty   survey   thus   given   of   the 
world's  social  evolution  is  not  a  mere  fancy,  we 


152      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

have  many  of  the  same  proofs  that  we  do  with 
regard  to  the  evolution  of  its  other  parts. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  passage  from  the  society 
of  united  cells  in  the  animal  body  to  the  society 
of  disunited  animals  in  a  flock  or  herd.  There 
are  creatures  which  ordinarily  swim  with  their 
parts  distinct,  like  a  shoal  of  minnows,  but 
which,  when  alarmed  and  needing  to  defend 
themselves,  instantly  put  their  parts  together 
and  become  one  large  animal,  and  others  which 
begin  their  existence  as  a  single  organism,  and 
then  pass  gradually  into  a  full  community. 
What  are  swarms  of  bees  but  little  buzzing 
groups  of  cells,  that  without  ever  being  joined 
together  are  really,  in  their  motions  and  con- 
trolling spirit,  only  a  single  composite  animal? 
What  are  ant  hills  and  flocks  of  birds  and 
shoals  of  fishes  but  cruder  manifestations  of  the 
social  tie  which  higher  up  draws  human  beings 
into  cities  and  tribes,  a  unity  of  life  that  Words- 
worth alludes  to  in  his  words: 

"The  cattle  are  grazing,  their  heads  never  raising, 
There  are  forty  feeding  as  one." 

And  even  among  plants  how  inevitably  do  those 
which  are  of  the  same  kind  group  themselves, 
pines  with  pines,  oaks  with  oaks ;  with  what 
soldierly  comradeship  the  serried  ranks  of  the 
forest  lock  arms  and  breast  the  winter  storm; 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY      153 

how  socially  the  groves,  those  first  temples  of 
God,  arch  their  limbs  into  roofs,  and  lift  their 
tops  into  pinnacles,  and  with  their  leaves  as 
hymn-books  and  the  breezes  as  breaths,  join  in 
their  choral  song;  how  loving  the  violets  and 
innocents,  unable  alone  to  attract  their  insect 
fertilizers  unite  their  forces  in  great  patches 
of  color  which  can  not  fail  of  being  seen.  And 
even  the  wicked  weeds  when  they  go  forth  to  do 
their  mischief,  how  well  does  every  farmer  know, 
it  is  not  as  single  robbers  but  as  great  maraud- 
ing bands  that  they  make  their  assaults, — all 
evidences  of  how  thoroughly  the  socialistic  idea 
is  rooted  in  nature  and  with  what  easy  steps  it 
rises  from  cell  to  soul. 

Coming  to  man,  however,  it  has  long  been  the 
teaching  of  theology  that  his  movement  has 
been  the  other  way,  that  he  was  placed  on  earth 
at  first  as  a  civilized  being,  and  that  falling 
first  out  of  Eden  into  sin,  he  kept  on  falling  till 
he  landed  in  utter  barbarism  and  savagery ;  and 
indeed  apart  from  theology  there  is  no  denying 
that  he  has  had  great  and  terrible  lapses, — not 
only  individuals,  but  cities,  tribes,  nations, 
whole  civilizations,  Assyria,  Egypt,  Persia, 
Greece,  Spain.  But  regarded  scientifically, 
these  have  been  only  the  rhythmic  movements 
that  we  find  in  all  progress ;  are  like  the  aging 
and  death  of  generations  and  species ;  no  more 


154      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

an  indication  of  what  is  taking  place  with  the 
growing  part  of  humanity  than  the  swash  of 
the  waves  is  of  how  the  tide  is  setting  along  the 
ocean's  shore.  The  different  grades  of  society 
are  spread  over  the  earth  now,  rising  regularly 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  just  as  the  dif- 
ferent species  of  animals  and  plants  are,  so  that 
to-day  you  can  see  the  stone  age  in  Africa  and 
our  savage  sires  socially  in  the  living  men  of  the 
southern  seas.  All  history  sets  its  shoulders 
square  against  the  idea  that  man  began  as  a 
civilized  being  and  sank  through  sin  into  sav- 
agery, and  plants  itself  on  the  side  of  his 
gradual  rise,  every  existing  civilization,  as  you 
trace  it  back,  growing  cruder  and  cruder  till  it 
is  lost,  not  in  the  sunlight  of  Eden,  but  in  the 
night  of  barbarism  and  superstition.  Beyond 
the  age  of  iron,  where  written  history  finds  man 
and  begins  his  record,  the  implements  that  are 
found  in  caves  and  gravels  and  mounds  and 
shell  heaps  and  at  the  bottom  of  Swiss  lakes 
tell  in  their  written  words  of  a  bronze  age,  and 
back  of  that  of  a  smooth-stone  age,  and  back 
of  that  of  a  rough-stone  age,  where  his  only 
tools  are  such  as  an  intelligent  baboon  is  found 
now  to  use.  Nor  is  it  in  the  earth  or  in  old 
records  alone  that  we  find  the  evidence  of  his 
rude  primitive  state.  Just  as  man's  living  body 
has  all  through  it  the  rudimental  and  atavistic 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY     155 

organs  of  the  animal  bodies  from  which  he 
came,  so  our  living  society  has  all  through  it 
the  rudimental  and  atavistic  forms,  qualities 
and  actions,  that  prove  equally  the  savage  and 
even  the  animal  society  out  of  which  it  has  been 
evolved.  When  an  Ashantee  woman  wants  to  be 
very  dressy,  she  breaks  off  the  twig  from  a  tree 
and  ties  it  to  her  back  hair, — this  and  nothing 
more, — and  who  shall  say  that  so  far  as  the  up- 
per part  of  her  person  goes,  the  fashionably- 
dressed  ballroom  belle  of  civilized  America  does 

not  touch  shoulders  with  her  very  closely  as if 

I  may  be  allowed  the  word  without  seeming  to 
make  a  pun— a  missing  link.  Start  a  panic 
m  an  army,  or  in  a  crowded  assembly  or  any- 
where that  a  large  company  of  people  are 
gathered,  and  see  how  quickly  they  will  lose 
their  separate  individuality  of  will,  thought, 
and  action,  and  become  as  much  one  animal 
moved  by  one  impulse  as  ever  a  swarm  of  bees 
or  shoal  of  fishes  was.  The  story  is  told  of  a 
cat  who  was  magically  transformed  into  a 
fine  lady  and  acted  her  part  so  successfully  in 
the  most  fashionable  social  circles  as  to  resist 
all  efforts  to  make  her  betray  her  origin,  till  one 
day  her  artful  rival  dropped  a  rat  on  the  parlor 
floor  when,  instantly  springing  to  the  carpet 
on  all  fours,  she  went  for  it  mouth  and  claw. 
Who  has  not   seen   whole  churches   apparently 


156      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

transformed  into  angels,  and  resisting  all  other 
allurements    into    lower   traits    who   have   done 
precisely  the  same  thing  when  an  heretical  rat 
has  been  let  loose  in  their  presence?     Every- 
body   who    is    familiar    with    a    farmyard    has 
noticed    how    inevitably    a   brood    of    chickens, 
when  a  strange  one  has  strayed  among  them, 
will  turn  on  it  and  peck  it  to  death  or  drive  it 
off ;  and  what  is  it  but  the  very  thing  that  all 
fashionable   circles   do   when   a   woman  with   a 
strange  bonnet  comes  into  their  brood;  and  all 
conservative  men-circles   when   a   crank  with  a 
new  idea  comes  into  their  coop?     Put  a  parcel 
of  boys  together  free  of  restraint,  even  college 
boys,   and   see   how   soon   they  will  be  up,   or, 
rather,  down,  to  the  embryonic  monkey  tricks 
of  the  social  stage  through  which  their  ancestry 
came.     Dig  down  under  the  present   crust   of 
society  anywhere,  and  you  will  find  specimens 
of  its  primitive  state  just  as  surely  as  you  will 
in  the  rocks  of  its  primitive  animals, — tigers  in 
Tammany  Hall,  bulls  and  bears  in  Wall  Street, 
the  lion's  tail  in  English  statesmanship,  and  the 
eagle's     talons     in     American     oratory.      City 
streets    which   have    at    one   end    churches    and 
schools  and  homes  and  the  nineteenth  century, 
have  at  the  other  superstitions  and  ignorances 
and  hovels  and  the  dark  ages.     And  indeed  what 
is  the  church  itself  but  a  vast  system  of  social 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SOCIETY     157 

paleontology,  the  fossil  remains  of  the  world's 
past  beliefs,  rites  and  ceremonies  tufted  at  the 
top  with  a  thin  growth  of  fresh  and  living 
social  activities. 

Such  has  been  the  evolution  of  society,  such 
the  earmarks  it  yet  carries  of  the  animal  and 
the  savage  herds  from  which  it  has  come.  You 
see  the  new  meaning  it  gives  to  history,  to  an- 
tiquities and  to  all  existing  habits  and  customs, 
makes  them  no  longer  columns  of  beads  on  a 
string,  but  rows  of  letters  setting  forth  wonder- 
ful truths.  It  is  a  process  which  is  still  going  on, 
and  going  on  more  rapidly  now  than  ever  before. 
What  changes  have  we  seen  in  it  during  our 
own  time,  slavery  wiped  out,  liberty  enlarged, 
and  inventions  made  and  truths  discovered  that 
under  our  very  eyes  are  giving  it  a  new  shape. 
It  is  something  of  which  we  too,  individually, 
are  a  part,  living  cells  in  its  mighty  body,  help- 
ing to  make  it  not  only  what  it  is,  but  what  it 
is  to  be.  And  seeing  how  it  has  been  evolved  in 
the  past,  are  we  not  the  better  prepared  to  do 
our  part  in  helping  it  on  to  that  day  when  what 
is  rooted  so  deep  in  time  and  been  nourished  with 
such  myriad  lives,  shall  bear  on  its  branches 
what  vastly  beyond  its  own  perfection  is  to  be 
its  final  outcome,  the  blossoms  and  fruit  of  even 
finer  and  distinctive  individual  men  and  women? 


IX 

THE  WORLD'S  COMING  BETTER  SOCIAL 
STATE 

AS   INDICATED    BY   EVOLUTION 

When  the  schemes   and  all  the  systems,  kingdoms 

and  republics  fall, 
Something  kindlier,  higher,  holier,  all  for  each  and 

each  for  all. 

Men  in  all  ages  have  been  discontented  with 
their  own  times  and  have  delighted  in  picturing 
to  themselves  a  better  social  state.  With  some, 
its  location  has  been  in  the  far-off  past,  a  Gar- 
den of  Eden,  and  a  golden  age ;  with  others^  in 
the  far-off  future,  a  heavenly  home  and  an  im- 
mortal existence;  with  yet  others  in  an  ideal 
world  independent  of  any  special  time  or  place, 
a  Plato's  Republic  and  a  More's  Utopia,  and 
with  not  a  few  right  here  on  earth  in  a  day  soon 
to  dawn,  a  Christian  millennium  and  a  cooper- 
ative commonwealth.  And  while  now  and  then 
it  has  been  only  an  object  of  pleasant  thought, 
no  more  to  be  sought  for  practically  than 
158 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  159 

Spencer's  Faerie  Land  or  the  gorgeous  realms 
of  a  sunset  sky,  it  has  with  multitudes  of  our 
race,  indeed  with  all  reformers,  been  their 
dearest  hope,  struggled  for  amid  all  the  agonies 
of  battlefield  and  martyr  fire. 

Preeminently  is  our  own  age  characterized 
by  such  dreams  and  discontent.  The  splendor 
of  its  attainments  in  wealth,  art,  science,  letters, 
liberty,  rights,  almost  everything  which  relates 
to  human  welfare,  is  almost  lost  sight  of  in 
the  multitude  yet  remaining  of  its  poverties, 
miseries  and  wrongs.  Literally  is  it  having  the 
old  Scripture  fulfilled  that  your  sons  and  daugh- 
ters shall  prophecy,  your  young  men  see  visions 
and  your  old  men  dream  dreams ;  and  alive  with 
its  spirit  there  is  hardly  a  newspaper  falling 
short  in  its  morning  supply  of  scandal  and 
crime,  which  does  not  eke  out  its  vacant  space 
with  an  improved  social  system,  hardly  a  crank 
failing  to  earn  a  living  for  himself  with  the 
hammer  and  hoe,  who  does  not  work  out  for  the 
world  with  his  fancy  a  new  scheme  of  universal 
financial  prosperity. 

Nor  is  it  a  tendency  which  even  in  its  wildest 
manifestations  is  to  be  wholly  despised.  The 
age  which  never  dreams  will  never  do.  All  the 
world's  great  days  of  sober  fact  have  had 
their  morning  sunrise  in  some  splendid 
fancy. 


160      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

"Dreams  in  their  development  have  breath, 
Are  rudiments  of  the  great  state  to  be." 

The  very  word  Christian,  now  so  fondly  clung 
to  by  those  who  would  maintain  the  existing 
social  order,  meant  originally  the  adherent  of 
a  person  regarded  as  especially  anointed  of 
God  to  lead  men  to  a  better  state  of  things 
right  here  on  earth, — is  now,  in  the  occasional 
lapses  of  its  ministers  into  sympathy  with  new 
social  movements,  only  being  true  to  the  dreams 
of  its  own  divinest  youth.  And  the  socialistic 
hope,  condemned  often  as  outside  of  all  religion, 
is  really  only  a  fresh  outbreak  in  our  day  of  the 
world's  old  Messianic  hope,  its  visions  but 
new  chapters  in  humanity's  larger,  unclosed 
Apocalypse,  and  its  demands  but  the  modern 
wording  of  our  old  endeared  Lord's  Prayer, 
"Thy  kingdom  come." 

But  while  such  dreamings  all  have  their  use, 
all  help  to  keep  men  from  settling  down  into  the 
despairing  belief  that  society  as  it  now  is,  with 
its  myriad  evils,  is  necessarily  a  fixture.  The 
great  drawback  to  most  of  them  as  social  states 
actually  to  be  worked  for,  is  that  they  are  only 
dreams,  only  pictures  drawn  by  the  unguided 
fancy  of  what  for  the  moment  seems  desirable, 
and  not  forecasts  based  on  a  study  of  society's 
own  inherent  laws  and  whose  realization  we  can 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  161 

help  nature  practically  to  bring  about.  There 
is  one  truth  in  the  matter  which  our  modern 
acquaintance  with  the  principles  of  evolution 
ought  to  make  us  absolutely  sure  of:  it  is  that 
there  will  be  and  can  be  no  coming  better  social 
state  which  is  not  the  direct  outgrowth  of  the 
one  which  is  now  and  here,  preeminently  no 
better  one  which  can  arise  from  the  present 
one's  mere  destruction.  The  present  one  is  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  from  among  all  the  myriad 
experiments  which  up  to  date  it  has  been 
possible  for  nature  to  try, — would  result  if 
wiped  out  and  tried  again,  only  in  its  mere 
repetition, — has  within  it  as  the  costly  product 
of  all  the  ages  of  its  growth  the  germs  of  the 
best  that  man  can  ever  have.  And  to  know 
what  the  world's  coming  one  is  to  be,  it  is  evi- 
dently to  this  present  one,  to  the  forces  and 
laws  already  within  it  out  of  which  the  coming 
one  is  to  be  evolved,  that  the  student  must  go. 
Evolution,  to  be  sure,  even  with  such  a  basis  to 
work  from,  cannot  give  us  all  the  details  of  its 
coming  state,  the  exact  size  to  which  its  sleeves 
will  swell  and  hats  arise, — cannot  do  with  the 
star  of  empire  what  the  astronomer  can  with  a 
star  of  the  skies,  predict  from  a  part  of  its  orbit 
the  whole  of  its  course,  for,  aside  from  the 
mighty  factor  of  man's  free  will  acting  on 
society  as  it  never  does  on  star,  nature  itself 


162      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

breaks  forth  ever  and  anon  into  great  flying 
leaps  of  action  which  are  liable,  as  Tennyson 
says,  to  make  the  future, — 

"Something  other  than  the  wildest  modern  guess  of 
you  or  me." 

But  it  can  give  us,  if  not  astronomical  pre- 
dictions, yet  weather  bureau  indications  of  what 
in  the  world's  great  to-morrow  its  social  state 
is  likely  to  be,  and  it  is  some  of  its  larger 
features  thus  pointed  out  that  I  shall  try  to 
set  forth. 

It  indicates  first  that  it  will  be  a  better  state 
than  it  is  now.  Evolution  does  indeed  have  its 
degeneracies  and  dyings  out,  its  "scarped  cliff 
and  quarried  stone,  from  which  a  thousand 
types  are  gone,"  and  the  time  will  surely  come 
when  in  this  world,  at  least,  it  will  have  reached 
its  climax  and  begin  to  descend ;  the  time  when, 
as  Huxley  says,  "its  fittest  forms  to  survive 
will  be  again  the  mollusc  and  the  moss."  But 
that  climax  is  yet  a  long,  long  ways  off.  Of 
the  eight  great  periods  which  a  planet's  life 
normally  passes  through,  mist,  liquid,  rock, 
lower  life,  human  life,  dying,  being  dead  and 
dissolution,  each  of  them  lasting  millions  of 
years,  the  earth  as  yet  is  only  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fifth,  only  when  man  is  at  the  very 
beginning    of    his    maturity, — has,    therefore, 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  163 

barring  the  accident  of  a  comet  across  its  path 
or  the  assaults  of  some  unusually  harmful 
meteoric  bacteria,  at  least  five  millions  of  years 
before  reaching  its  turning  point  of  old  age, — 
is  what,  if  there  were  insurance  companies  which 
issued  policies  on  stars,  as  sometime,  judging 
by  the  way  they  are  now  extending  their  bus- 
iness there  may  be,  would  be  considered  a  very 
good  risk.  And  all  this  time  evolution  will 
mean  as  a  whole  the  world's  growing  better, 
mean  even  with  its  degenerations  a  degenerating 
forward,  and  with  its  dyings  out  a  dying  into 
higher  forms  of  life. 

Moreover,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  special 
part  of  the  world  which  is  now  evolving  is  its 
social  part.  Nature  is  not  doing  much  in  our 
day  at  making  mountains  or  continents  or  seas, 
or  new  species  of  animals  or  plants  or  men, — 
not  doing  much  directly  at  improving  the  in- 
dividual body  or  bones  or  even  brain.  But  she 
is  at  work  now  as  never  before,  on  the  world's 
social  structure,  is  building  up  the  individual 
human  brick,  molded  for  so  many  ages  out  of 
her  original  protoplasmic  clay  into  an  edifice 
which  does  indeed  promise  to  be  sky-high, — 
this  fact  that  Mr.  Kidd,  among  all  the  thousand 
and  one  fallacies  of  his  wonderful  book,  has 
strikingly  made  plain.  It  is  what  renders 
sociology  such  a  fascinating  study ;  social  re- 


164      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

form  such  fascinating  work.  We  think  some- 
times we  would  like  to  look  back  into  the  eons 
of  the  past  and  see  our  material  earth,  its  seas 
and  shores  and  living  things  actually  evolving 
under  nature's  plastic  touch;  but  we  can,  if 
we  will,  do  better  than  that, — see  our  social 
earth,  its  grander  shores  and  finer  life,  visibly 
taking  shape  before  our  eyes ;  be,  if  we  will, 
partners  with  nature  in  the  work.  And  with 
this  certainty  of  its  ultimate  betterness  to 
fall  back  upon,  what  though  we  also  see  races, 
nations,  institutions,  religions,  some  of  them  of 
immeasurable  cost  and  worth,  perishing  all 
around  us,  we  need  not  fear,  as  some  do,  that 
society  itself  is  going  to  perish,  need  not  fear 
but  that  from  every  fall,  the  same  as  with 
physical  nature,  it  will  rise  up  a  fairer  spring. 

"Grown  wiser  by  the  lesson  given, 
I  fear  no  longer,  for  I  know 
That  where  the  share  is  deepest  driven 
The  best  fruits  grow." 

What  will  be  the  nature  of  society's  better 
coming  state?  Nearly  all  dreamers  have  an- 
swered, material,  moral,  civil  perfection,  a 
state  in  which  all  the  forces  of  nature  will  be 
in  harmonious  action,  all  the  problems  of  society 
satisfactorily  solved,  all  the  ten  thousand  forms 
of  the  world's  evil  utterly  eliminated,  and  all 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  165 

the  races  of  men  freed  from  anxiety  and  care, 
working  only  as  they  wish,  and  healthy,  happy 
and  good,  or,  as  Tennyson  says, 

''All  diseases  quenched  by  science,  no  man  halt  or 
deaf  or  blind, 

Stronger  ever  born  of  weaker,  lustier  body,  larger 
mind, — 

Every  tiger  madness  muzzled,  every  serpent  pas- 
sion killed, 

Every  grim  ravine  a  garden,  every  blazing  desert 
tilled." 

But  fascinating  as  in  some  respects  such  a 
vision  is,  evolution  is  very  far  from  pointing 
to  it  as  one  ever  likely  to  be  realized.  Man's 
present  use  of  the  earth,  instead  of  tending  to 
make  it  a  natural  garden,  is  tending  more  and 
more  to  make  it  a  natural  waste, — slashing 
down  its  forests,  burning  up  its  coal,  exhausting 
its  soil,  poisoning  its  airs  and  letting  loose  its 
cyclones  and  floods.  Its  big  wild  beasts  may 
be  becoming  fewer,  but  how  about  its  little 
bacteria?  Its  new  West  producing  larger 
crops,  but  what  of  its  old  East?  Its  machinery 
doing  more  and  more  work,  but  where  is  its 
lessening  of  our  human  anxieties  and  cares? 
Each  new  discovery  brings  with  it  a  new 
danger, — railroad  speed,  railroad  smash-ups, 
electric  dynamos,  electric  deaths.     Each  settle- 


166     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

merit  of  an  old  problem  reveals  a  dozen  bigger 
ones  to  take  its  place,  shows  ahead  of  us  from 
each  mountain  climbed. 

"Hills  peep  o'er  hills  and  alps  on  alps  arise." 

While  the  average  length  of  human  life  is  in- 
creasing by  preservation  of  the  young,  who 
shall  say  that  Lombroso  is  mistaken  in  thinking 
that  its  real  stock  vigor,  as  shown  by  its  fewer 
old  people,  is  going  the  other  way?  And  as 
regards  its  moral  health,  though  its  temptations 
and  tempters  in  our  modern  life  may  be  less 
outward  and  crude  than  of  old,  what  evidence 
is  there  that  their  assaults  on  it  inwardly  are 
any  less  terrible,  or  the  struggles  needed  for 
their  resistance  an}^  less  fierce  than  when,  at  the 
start,  its  primal  Adam  and  Eve  yielded  to  those 
of  an  apple  and  a  snake?  No:  evolution  does 
not  promise  to  take  us  forward  to  an  Eden  in 
the  future  any  more  than  backward  to  one  in 
the  past, — does  not  promise  even  to  give  us  a 
sunshine  without  a  shadow  or  a  crown  without 
a  cross. 

But  it  does  promise  with  its  unfolding  around 
us  of  more  difficulties,  more  evils,  more  prob- 
lems to  be  met,  to  unfold  within  us  more 
strength  and  skill  for  their  meeting  and  more 
success  in  winning  out  of  them  food,  health, 
happiness,  manhood.     It  is  this  which  has  been 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  167 

its  trend  all  through  the  past, — not  fewer  foes 
and  battles,  but  more  victories  and  spoils;  not 
smaller  apples  and  snakes  as  the  tempters,  but 
stronger  Adams  and  Eves  as  the  resisters ;  not 
the   earth  unmade   a  wilderness,  but  the  earth 
out  of  its  very  wildernesses  made  to  bloom  as 
Eden   never  did;  not   its   strata   of  coal  undi- 
minished   down    below,    but    its    layers    of    the 
lightning  tapped  and  mined  up  above ;  not  man 
less  liable  to  disease,  but  man  endowed  by  his 
very  wrestlings   against  disease  with   a  health 
such  as  nature  never  gave;  not  society  without 
a  hell,  but  society  using  its  hells  to  make  out  of 
them  and  make  for  itself,  an  ever  finer  heaven. 
And  everything  points  to  this  as  its  direction 
still  more   grandly  in   the   future.     Just   as   a 
French  gardener  can  already  take  a  bit  of  pave- 
ment, and  by  the  use  of  his  chemical  fertilizers 
make  out  of  it  in  three  years  a  bit  of  Paradise, 
so  when  this  old  earth  of  ours  shall  have  become 
so   dry   and   desert-like   that,    left   to   itself,   it 
would  not  feed  a  mouse,  science  and  art  are  to 
clasp  it  as  a  woman  does  a  sponge,  and  squeeze 
out  of  it  harvests  such  as  watered  Egypt  never 
waved  with ;  compel  Sahara  with  its  own  heat  to 
make  ice   and  snow;   have   around  either  pole, 
by  reason   of  its  delicious  mingling  of  frigid 
cold  and  torrid  warmth,  hotels  and  picnics  and 
the  summer  girl;  shut  the  western  cyclone,  in- 


168      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

stead  of  the  western  farmer,  down  in  a  "dug- 
out" as  a  source  of  electric  energy  for  driving 
his  plow  and  reaping  his  wheat ;  and  make  man 
as  little  afraid  of  bacteria  as  he  now  is  of  bears, 
tame  them,  perhaps  as  he  has  the  dog  and  the 
cow  to  be  his  guardians  and  help  his  health.  And 
while  vaster  and  vaster  problems  will  con- 
tinually follow  his  solution  of  the  old  ones,  the 
vaster  and  vaster  strength  that  he  will  get  from 
their  solving,  will  make  him  look  back  on  those 
which  to-day  are  so  puzzling, — the  silver  ques- 
tion, the  tariff  question,  the  adjustment  of 
labor  and  capital,  the  management  of  big  cities 
and  big  hats,  and  the  like, — very  much  as  the 
man  of  sixty  now  does  on  his  childish  wrestlings 
with  a,  b,  ab,  and  two  and  two  make  four. 
Meliorism,  not  optimism,  an  ever  bettering,  not 
an  ever  best,  that  is  the  principle,  that  the 
promise  of  evolution,  as  regards  the  world's 
coming  social  state. 

And  after  all,  is  not  that  what  we  really 
want,  that  the  thing  which  really  is  best  ?  Who 
dreads  difficulty,  toil,  sacrifice,  agony,  when  to 
meet  them  he  has  health,  muscle,  courage,  brain, 
■ — who,  rather,  does  not  welcome  them  as  man- 
hood's truest  joy?  A  perfect  world  to  dwell  in 
would  mean  to  its  dwellers  inevitably  the 
wasting  away  through  ease,  of  their  long,  toil- 
won  powers.     It  is  only  imperfection  which  can 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  169 

keep  alive  perfection ;  only  a  heaven  before  us 
forever  unreached,  the  struggle  for  which  can 
make  a  heaven  within  forever  reached ;  and 
amid  all  the  frightful  pictures  theology  has 
painted  of  a  realm  where 

"Infinite  day  excludes  the  night, 
And  pleasures  banish  pain." 

"And  everlasting  spring  abides 
And  never  withering  flowers/' 

it  is  an  immense  satisfaction  to  feel  that  evolu- 
tion will  never  cease,  at  least  in  this  world,  to 
provide  us  amply  with  manhood's  meat  of 
sorrow,  hardship  and  care, — great  problems  to 
be  solved  for  humanity,  and  great  sacrifices  to 
be  made  for  those  we  love, — never  cease,  there- 
fore, to  give  us  a  betterness  in  which  souls  can 
grow. 

How  far  will  society's  coming  betterness  be 
a  realization  of  what  socialism  has  in  view,  a 
betterness  in  which  all  its  property  will  be  owned 
by  the  state  and  all  its  industries, — farms, 
factories,  trade,  travel  and  the  like,  admin- 
istered by  the  state's  officials?  We  all  know 
how  largely  such  a  consummation  is  the  ideal  of 
our  time,  and  what  thousands  not  of  cranks 
merely,  but  of  society's  best  men  and  women 
are  working  for  it  as  the  one  remedy  including 
all  others,  for  the  waste,  inequality,  rivalry  and 


170      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

wrong  with  which  the  world  now  is  so  fearfully 
cursed.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  utter  one  word 
of  disrespect  for  their  zeal,  or  of  denial  as  to 
the  really  strong  arguments  urged  for  their 
plan.  But  whatever  else  may  be  said  in  its 
favor,  looked  at  in  the  light  of  evolution  and 
through  the  long  vista  of  history,  it  is  an  ideal 
whose  realization  for  the  future  is  utterly  hope- 
less, one  as  regards  which  the  movement  is  all 
the  other  way.  There  are  three  great  stages 
in  all  evolution,  whether  it  be  of  worlds,  plants, 
animals,  or  society,  homogeneity,  or  sameness ; 
that  in  which  everything  is  in  common,  as  a 
nebula,  a  seed,  an  animalcule ;  then  differentia- 
tion or  diversifying,  that  in  which  the  common 
mass  is  divided,  subdivided  and  divided  again 
into  a  multitude  of  distinct  parts,  as  with 
planets,  the  limbs  of  a  tree  and  the  organs  of 
the  human  body ;  and  finally  integration  or  or- 
ganization, that  in  which  the  parts  while  still 
remaining"  as  distinct  as  ever  in  their  own  forms 
and  functions,  are  joined  by  their  common  life 
principle  in  a  large  and  complex  whole  which 
is  capable  of  functions  infinitely  beyond  what 
either  the  original  mass  or  the  divided  parts 
could  accomplish,  as  the  solar  system,  the  fruit- 
growing tree  and  the  marvelous  human  body. 
Now  society,  like  everything  else,  began  in 
homogeneity,   or  sameness,  began  with  having 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  171 

lan'ds,  dwellings,  wives,  children,  rights,  reli- 
gion, everything,  owned  and  held  in  common 
by  the  family  and  the  tribe,  and  administered 
for  it  by  the  father  and  the  chief.  And  it  was 
then,  beyond  question,  its  most  desirable  state, 
survived  for  ages  variously  modified  as  the 
fittest  in  which  to  withstand  foes  and  secure 
food,  lifted  man  from  savagery  to  Greek 
and  Roman  civilization, — is  what  Puritanism 
sought  to  reestablish  here  in  America,  and  has 
its  illustrations  to-day  religiously,  alike  its  ex- 
cellencies and  its  defects,  in  the  great  Roman 
Catholic  Church. 

But  it  is  now  most  emphatically  a  back  num- 
ber in  the  issues  of  time,  has  left  far  behind  it 
the  environment  which  of  old  made  it  a  success ; 
and  to  go  back  to  it  would  be  like  the  limbed 
tree's  going  back  to  its  common  trunk,  or  the 
starred  universe  to  its  undivided  fire-mist. 
Evolution  is  not  traveling  at  all  that  way. 
The  rise  of  humanity  has  been  the  rise  of  the 
individual;  freedom,  that  ideal  for  which  such 
battles  have  been  fought,  such  rivers  of  blood 
poured  out,  such  heroisms  of  earth's  noblest 
and  best  displayed,  has  been  freedom  first  of 
the  state,  and  then  freedom  just  as  certainly 
from  the  state;  commercial  progress,  the 
growth  of  property  into  private  hands  away 
more   and   more    from    legislative   interference, 


172      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

and  Mosaism,  Christianity,  Protestantism, 
Liberalism,  religion's  great  steps,  each  a  step 
forward  in  the  soul's  throwing  off  some  com- 
munity's shackles  to  stand  forth  and  give  an 
account  of  itself  before  God.  And  with  this 
mighty  law  of  evolution  within  it,  where  now  is 
the  probability  that  society's  movement  is  to 
be  reversed,  and  its  differentiations  rolled  back, 
even  partially,  into  the  homogeneity  out  of 
which  they  have  been  so  long  and  so  painfully 
evolved?  Where  the  likelihood  that  humanity 
after  struggling  five  thousand  years  to  get  its 
neck  out  of  the  yoke  of  a  sovereign  person,  is 
going  to  put  it  right  away  into  the  yoke  of  a 
sovereign    state? 

What  though  the  property  thus  massed 
away  from  the  individual  is  still  to  be  owned 
by  the  community  of  which  the  individual  is  a 
part?  That  will  not  make  his  real  control  of 
it  any  more  than  when  formerly  it  was  owned 
by  a  chief  or  a  king.  An  old  New  Hampshire 
farmer  tried  to  celebrate  his  Fourth  of  July 
one  year  by  going  on  board  a  magnificent  war- 
ship at  anchor  off  of  Charlestown  Navy  Yard, 
and  making  himself  very  much  at  home,  in- 
specting its  guns,  engines,  cabins,  compasses 
and  the  like.  An  officer,  on  beholding  the  in- 
truder, peremptorily  ordered  him  ashore.  "I 
won't  go,"  said  the  old  man,  "I  am  an  American 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  173 

citizen,  I'd  have  you  know ;  and  helped  pay  for 
this  'ere  boat,  and  it  is  as  much  mine  as  it  is 
yourn."  "All  right,"  answered  the  officer, 
picking  up  a  sliver  from  the  deck  and  handing 
it  to  him,  "here  is  your  part  of  it ;  take  it  and 
begone."  Well,  that  sliver  represents  just 
about  the  control  the  American  citizen  would 
have  of  his  property  after  he  had  lumped  it 
all  into  a  great  ship  of  state. 

What  though  the  officers  who  control  its 
affairs  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  officers  them- 
selves? That  is  not  going  to  make  their  indi- 
vidual liberty  under  them  any  greater  than  it 
was  when  their  rulers  were  imposed  upon  them 
by  blood  and  birth.  Jam,  the  New  York 
soldier,  who  was  so  outrageously  strung  up  by 
the  thumbs  a  few  years  ago,  helped  to  choose 
his  officers,  yet  when  he  attempted  to  express 
his  opinion  as  a  freeman,  wherein  was  he  better 
off  than  the  subject  of  a  czar?  The  people 
of  the  United  States  choose  their  lawmakers  as 
things  are  now;  yet  who,  looking  at  the  kind 
of  wisdom  they  display  at  Washington  from 
winter  to  winter,  can  wish  to  put  any  more  of 
his  interests  into  such  hands?  Changing  the 
name  of  a  government,  calling  it  a  fraternity 
instead  of  paternalism,  is  not  going  to  change 
its  nature.  Wherever  the  political  carcass  is, 
there  will  the  political  eagles  be  gathered  to- 


174      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

gether;  and  a  family  in  which  an  elder  brother 
is  given  the  rule  is  not  likely  to  be  any  more 
acceptably  abused  than  one  in  which  the  ac- 
customed father  holds  the  rod. 

No,  while  the  parts  of  the  people  who  have 
special  axes  to  grind,  may  be  as  ready  as  ever 
to  bring  them  to  the  public  grindstone,  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  those  who  have  to  do  its 
turning, — and  some  of  us  farmers'  boys,  who 
used  to  have  to  turn  the  stone  about  mowing 
time  know  what  that  is, — are  likely  to  be  very 
much  pleased  with  such  an  enormous  addition 
to  their  work.  It  is  honest  men,  not  rascals, 
who  to-day  are  getting  a  distrust  of  politician- 
made  justice, — honest  men  who,  seeing  how  law 
has  left  its  seat  in  the  bosom  of  God,  where 
old  Hooker  beheld  it,  to  take  one  on  the  bench 
of  a  lobby,  is  woven  by  a  congress  only  to  be 
riven  by  a  court,  has  narrow  meshes  for  the 
poor  workman's  cart  and  obsequious  gates  for 
the  big  corporation's  coach, — they  who  are  rely- 
ing more  and  more  on  themselves,  independent 
of  law,  for  conducting  their  business.  And 
anarchism, — not  the  anarchism  of  dynamite  and 
disorder,  but  the  anarchism  of  Jesus  and  Paul, 
each  man's  doing  right  without  rulers  from  a 
principle  within  because  it  is  right, — though 
such  a  terrible  word  now,  as  libertv  was  once, 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  175 

is  destined,  like  liberty,  to  be  a  mighty  word  and 
an  honored  one  in  the  years  to  come. 

But,  while  State  socialism,  that  is,  the  own- 
ing and  managing  of  things  by  the  State  and 
its  officers,  is  thus  hopeless  under  evolution, 
there  is  another  kind  of  socialism,  that  of 
voluntary  individual  association,  the  integra- 
tion of  society's  differentiated  parts  not  by 
outward  authority,  but  through  their  own  in- 
herent law,  into  grand  organic  wholes,  which, 
as  being  in  the  very  line  of  all  evolution, — its 
third  great  stage  following  naturally  after 
that  of  differentiation, — is  sure  more  and 
more  to  come  about.  State  socialism  says 
union  is  a  good  thing,  and  therefore  all  men 
shall  unite;  nature  socialism  says  union  is  a 
good  thing  and  therefore  all  men  will  unite — 
two  little  words,  but  having  between  them  all 
the  difference  there  is  between  despotism  and 
liberty.  Society  is  going  to  take  nature's 
way> — has  already  begun  it, — indeed  has  been 
walking  in  it  from  the  very  start  side  by  side 
with  its  making  men  individually  free.  The 
age  in  which  we  live  is  preeminently  one  of  vol- 
untary individual  associations,  people  joining 
hands  to  do  things  themselves,  instead  of  kneel- 
ing at  the  feet  of  a  prince,  or,  worse  still,  of  a 
politician  to  get  them  done.     Who  will  say  it 


176      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

is  not  the  manlier  way?  And  its  use  is  to  go 
on  with  increasing  ratio,  the  State  always, 
perhaps,  doing  some  things,  those  which  experi- 
ence shows  it  can  do  best,  but  becoming  at  last 
only  one  of  ten  thousand  voluntary  associ- 
ations. And  under  the  action  of  these  two 
great  forces,  differentiation  and  integration, 
the  one  giving  man  the  priceless  boon  of  indi- 
vidual liberty,  the  other  the  equally  priceless 
efficiency  of  cooperative  labor,  the  world's 
great  social  solar  system  of  its  coming  age  is 
to  swing  forth  along  its  starry  way. 

But,  excluding  thus  the  idea  of  property's 
being  owned  and  managed  by  the  State,  the 
question  yet  further  arises,  what  are  to  be  its 
distributions  in  private  hands,  and  what  es- 
pecially between  those  of  labor  and  capital? 
It  is  a  question  of  tremendous  significance. 
The  differentiations  of  wealth  in  our  day  have 
passed  all  former  bounds, — are  heaped  upon 
one  side  in  multiplied  millions,  hollowed  out  on 
the  other  in  multiplied  miseries.  The  strug- 
gles for  it  between  labor  and  capital  are 
rivaling  in  cost  and  ferocity  the  world's  old 
military  wars.  "What!"  exclaimed  an  African 
chief  to  the  traveler  Burton,  "do  you  think  1 
am  going  to  starve  when  my  sister  has  children 
she  can  sell?"  There  are  business  chiefs,  not 
in  Africa,  who  with  equal  indignation  are  ex- 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  177 

claiming,  "Do  you  think  I  am  going  to  submit 
to  a  starvation  ten  per  cent,  of  profit,  when 
my  sister  Labor  has  children  by  the  sale  of 
whose  toil  into  what  is  practical  slavery,  I  can 
make  twenty !"  And  with  this  process  of  dif- 
ferentiation still  going  on,  fortunes  becoming 
larger  and  larger  as  the  result  of  natural  law, 
and  corporations  more  and  more  arrogant  as 
the  result  of  human  law,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
to  many  persons  the  outlook  ahead  seems  des- 
perate and  dark.  What  has  evolution  to  say 
of  the  matter? 

It  says  first  of  all,  do  not  scare, — that  huge 
fortunes  are  not  unmixed  evils ;  that  a  million 
dollars  honestly  gained  means  in  its  very  gain- 
ing a  million  dollars'  worth  of  service  to  the 
world,  and  after  its  gaining  a  million-dollar 
mountain  from  which  copious  streams  of 
spending  are  bound  inevitably  to  flow  down 
into  the  plains ;  and  that  so  far  as  they  are 
evils,  dishonestly  gained,  they  will  of  them- 
selves fail  to  survive.  Evolution  has  had  big 
things  to  deal  with  before ;  has  seen  the  animal 
monsters  of  the  geologic  ages  superseded  so 
entirely  by  lesser  ones,  that  man's  real  danger 
to-day  is  from  those  which  are  too  minute  for 
eyes  to  see ;  seen  the  emperors  and  kings,  prin- 
cipalities and  powers  of  the  political  world  go 
down  again  and  again  before  the  plain  common 


178      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

people ;  and  it  has  at  least  two  of  its  great 
forces  already  at  work  which  are  sure,  in  due 
time,  to  bring  about  a  similar  result  in  the 
financial  world,  with  its  property  monsters  and 
capital  kings.  One  of  them  is  the  transfer  of 
its  struggle  for  existence,  or,  in  other  words,  its 
fierce  competitions,  from  the  ranks  of  labor  to 
those  of  capital  by  the  popular  education  of 
more  persons  into  the  capacity  for  using 
capital.  It  is  the  excess  of  laborers  now 
notoriously  which  keeps  down  their  wages,  the 
scarcity  of  capitalists  which  makes  their  enor- 
mous gains  possible.  Equalize  their  numbers 
by  equalizing  their  ability,  make  brains  as 
common  as  brawn  and  you  equalize  their 
rewards.  The  school-book,  this  is  the  best 
lever,  if  labor  would  but  see  it,  for  lifting  Up 
wages, — the  slate-pencil,  this  is  the  best  blud- 
geon, if  labor  would  but  use  it,  for  knocking 
down  scabs ;  and  instead  of  lamenting  and  re- 
sisting the  increase  of  capitalists,  as  it  now 
does,  it  ought  to  rejoice  in  every  one  which 
goes  up  among  them  from  its  own  ranks  as  a 
helper  transferred  to  the  very  citadel  of  its 
foes.  Evolution's  other  force  helping  along 
the  same  result  is  the  union  of  labor  with 
itself,  the  matching  of  millions  of  money  with 
millions  of  men,  the  solid  shot  of  capital  with 
the  Gatling  gun  of  toil.     It  is  a  weapon  which 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  179 

has  proved  effective  everywhere  else  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  of  the  weak  against  the 
strong,  for  it  was  not  good  old  Dr.  Gatling 
down  at  Hartford,  but  Nature  herself  who  was 
its  original  inventor, — used  it  ages  before  man 
on  her  awful  geological  battlefields  where,  when 
her  monsters  got  too  large,  she  not  only  pitted 
them  against  each  other  individually,  but 
assailed  them  with  whole  flocks  and  herds 
acting  together,  six  hundred  a  minute  of  her 
smaller  creatures ;  and  it  is  one  which  labor  can 
rely  upon  with  equal  certainty  of  success  in  its 
battle  against  the  dinosaurs  and  megatheriums 
of  capital. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Evolution  here,  as 
everywhere  else,  means  beyond  war  peace, 
beyond  division  a  finer  union.  A  husband  and 
wife  who  had  invited  to  dinner  a  gentleman 
friend  recently  divorced,  had  with  them  at  the 
table  their  little  son,  a  regular  enfant  terrible 
full  of  embarrassing  questions  sure  to  pop  out  in 
the  most  embarrassing  places.  He  had  doubt- 
less overheard  a  little  of  his  parents'  talk  about 
the  divorce,  and  with  the  first  lull  in  the  con- 
versation, fixing  his  eyes  on  the  "marriage-is- 
a-failure"  victim,  demanded  of  him,  "Where  is 
your  wife?"  Trusting  to  quiet  him  with  one 
straightforward  statement  the  gentleman 
answered  "Divorced."     Instantly   the  question 


180      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

followed,  "What  did  you  get  divorced  for?" 
With  a  flushed  face  the  unhappy  wretch  seeing 
that  he  was  in  for  it,  explained  that  all  married 
people  were  not  as  congenial  as  his  happy 
father  and  mother  were,  and  that  temper  had 
made  the  difficulty.  "Well,"  he  continued, 
before  his  horrified  parents,  who  hitherto  had 
enjoyed  the  fun,  especially  the  compliment  to 
themselves,  could  choke  him  off,  "what  made 
you  get  divorced  for  that?  Why  didn't  you 
do  as  pa  and  ma  do,  when  they  get  their 
tempers  up,  stick  together  and  fight  it  out?" 
Well,  that  is  exactly  what  labor  and  capital 
are  going  to  do  under  evolution.  Instead  of 
getting  divorced  as  the  result  of  their  dis- 
agreements, they  are  going  to  do  as  pa  and  ma 
did,  stick  together,  not  as  master  and  servant, 
but  as  husband  and  wife,  and  fight  it  out.  Labor 
will  always  exist  and  always  be  labor, — the 
golden  age  have  dust  on  its  floors  and  dirt  in 
its  streets,  the  millennium  its  shining  robes  to 
be  washed  and  its  white  horses  to  be  groomed. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  labor,  because  it 
deals  with  dirt  and  coarseness  and  brutes, 
should  itself  be  dirty  and  coarse  and  brutal. 
A  large  part  of  its  degradation  in  the  past  has 
come  from  the  old  theological  doctrine  that 
the  matter  it  deals  with  is  in  its  very  nature 
degraded    and   vile.     But    science    has    in   our 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  181 

day,  thank  Heaven,  utterly  rid  it  of  that 
slander,  has  shown  it  to  be  as  beautiful  in  its 
laws,  as  wonderful  in  its  nature  and  as 
immanent  all  through  with  Deity  as  spirit  is. 
The  worker  in  it,  as  it  is  now  revealed,  even  in 
its  lowest  dust ;  the  greasy  mechanic  and  the 
despised  mudsill ;  touches  grandeur,  stands  face 
to  face  with  mystery,  has  that  to  deal  with  which 
challenges  his  loftiest  powers  and  is  capable  of 
drawing  out  his  noblest  qualities.  Filth  !  What 
form  of  it  has  matter  ever  assumed,  even  in  its 
lowest  sewer,  so  utterly  repulsive  as  that  which 
has  been  revealed  again  and  again  as  existing 
at  the  very  heart  of  European  culture,  some- 
thing which  must  be  vile  indeed  when  it  is  too 
vile  for  even  a  modern  newspaper  to  make 
money  on.  If  we  are  to  have  dirt  at  all,  give 
it  to  us,  I  say,  in  the  blackened  hands  and 
stained  dress  that  are  on  the  outside  of  manly 
toil  rather  than  in  the  blackened  tastes  and 
smudged  souls  which  are  inside  of  fashion's 
dainty  dress  and  aestheticism's  whitened  skin, 
the  honest  dirt  of  the  cabbage's  root  rather 
than  the  nameless  nastiness  of  the  sunflower's 
gaudy  disk.  And  with  matter  thus  raised  to 
honor  by  science,  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
worker  in  it  should  not  be  raised  to  an  equal 
level, — be  paid  as  much  wages,  eat  as  good  food, 
wear  as  good  clothes,  go  into  as  good  society, 


183      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

and  have  at  church  as  broad-aisled  a  pew  as 
the  worker  does  in  business  of  mind  or 
soul. 

Capital  also,  will  always  exist,  can  no  more 
be  got  rid  of  by  labor  than  the  mill  pond  can 
by  the  stream.  And  making  labor  an  equal,  it 
will  find  in  it,  as  every  husband  does  in  his  wife, 
a  helper  who,  beyond  any  servant,  will  save  him 
enough  more  and  make  him  enough  happier  to 
pay  tenfold  over  for  all  its  extra  cost. 

Then,  as  society  evolves,  may  we  not  fairly 
look  forward  to  a  time  when  they  both  will 
estimate  wealth  and  reward  in  something  else 
than  dollars  and  cents ;  to  a  time  when  knowl- 
edge will  be  gain,  and  art  and  science  riches, 
and  inward  growth  income ;  to  a  day  when  news- 
papers will  speak  of  millionaire  souls  and  of 
deeds  registered  in  heaven  as  really  treasures, 
and  when  at  a  man's  death  his  character  will 
be  counted  as  well  as  his  cash  in  reporting 
what  he  was  worth?  And  will  not  this  be  a 
solution  of  the  property  problem  infinitely 
better  than  any  mere  equalized  distribution  of 
its   silver  and  gold? 

I  have  time  left  only  to  speak  briefly  of  the 
other  great  elements  which  are  to  enter  into 
the  world's  coming  social  state,  piety,  morals, 
brotherhood,  womanhood,  nationality  and  the 
like,  what  they  are  to  be.     Evolution   affords 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  183 

no  indication  that  society's  separations  on  these 
points  are  ever,  as  some  hope,  to  be  closed  up, 
and  all  men  be  of  the  same  tastes,  caliber, 
political  opinion  and  religious  faith, — tends, 
rather,  to  accentuate  their  existing  divisions. 
There  will  always  be  farmers,  mechanics,  mer- 
chants, lawyers  and  possibly — though  their 
chance  seems  poorest  of  all — even  ministers ; 
always  radicals  and  conservatives,  believers  and 
skeptics,  saints  and  sinners,  Mikes  and 
Bridgets,  Sir  Galahads  and  Lady  Clara  Vere 
de  Veres.  But  evolution  does  indicate  the  com- 
ing of  a  time  when  out  of  their  separations, 
here,  the  same  as  everywhere  else,  its  other 
principle  of  integration  shall  arise,  under  which 
all  harsh  feeling  between  them  shall  pass  away, 
and  an  organic  union  take  its  place,  in  which 
their  very  differences  shall  be  each  other's  help. 
Mr.  Kidd  has  shown  conclusively  that  it  is  only 
those  people  who  have  the  most  fraternity, 
morality  and  public  spirit  with  which  to  hold 
themselves  together  and  hold  in  themselves 
each  generation's  slow  increment  of  progress, 
that  in  the  world's  fierce  struggle  for  existence 
can  survive ;  these  qualities,  therefore,  which 
are  sure  to  become  more  and  more  prominent 
in  the  world's  coming  state.  Pride  and  scorn 
and  class  airs  will  be  lessened.  Bridget  will 
always    get    a   smile    in    the    street    from   Lady 


184      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Clara,  and  Mike  a  bow  from  Sir  Galahad. 
Protestants  and  Catholics  shake  hands  together 
instead  of  fists;  Democrats  and  Republicans 
tell  truths  about  each  other  instead  of  lies. 
"You  can't  whip  me  now,  father,  for  I  am 
sitting  down  on  the  spot,"  exclaimed  the  small 
boy  to  his  irate  approaching  sire.  So  even 
Robt.  Ingersoll  shall  have  his  spot  to  sit  down 
upon,  safe  from  the  pulpit  father's  theological 
lash.  Marriage,  like  everything  else,  shall 
have  less  law  in  it  and  more  love — not  begin  in 
courtship  and  end  in  courts,  as  too  often  it 
does  now,  but  have  the  fixedness  of  freedom  and 
the  oneness  not  of  the  oak  and  the  vine,  but  of 
the  two-celled  heart.  Each  sex,  completely 
developed  along  its  own  line,  "full  summed  in 
all  its  powers,"  man  ever  manlier  and  woman 
ever  more  a  woman,  shall  lay  aside  more  and 
more  its  outward  ferocities  and  foibles,  he  his 
"swelled  head,"  and  she  her  "swell"  hat;  and 
society  in  rising  up  into  the  splendors  of  its 
new  morning  and  singing  the  sweetness  of  its 
new  song,  will  find  that  it  must  have  them  both 
acting  everywhere  together  as  its  two  wings 
on  which  to  soar ;  and,  to  make  all  the  sweetness 
of  its  song,  the  gifts  of  each  set  to  those  of  the 
other 

"Like  perfect  music  into  noble  words." 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  185 

While  nations,  also,  so  far  as  feature,  cus- 
tom, character  and  capacity  go,  will  always 
remain  distinct  members  of  the  world's  great 
social  structure.  Nature  has  not  spent  such 
countless  ages  and  such  outpourings  of  blood, 
treasure  and  hate  in  evolving  them  as  separate 
peoples  only  to  end  in  resolving  them  all  back 
again  into  one  conglomerate  humanity.  But 
differentiation  here,  as  everywhere  else  in  evolu- 
tion, will  be  followed  by  an  integration  of  the 
parts  that  will  utilize  their  very  diversities  in 
building  out  of  them  a  grand  organic  unity 
which  each  people  by  keeping  alive  its  special 
entity  will  render  the  more  complete.  Nation- 
ality, as  we  know  it  now,  bristling  with  bay- 
onets and  centered  in  self,  is  but  a  passing 
phase  in  humanity's  growth;  patriotism  as  it 
is  to-day,  fed  on  battle  memories  and  beautiful 
with  an  outward  red,  white,  and  blue,  but  a 
single  petal  in  the  flower  of  a  people's  love. 
All  harsh  barriers  between  nations  shall  in  the 
world's  better  day  be  broken  down.  Armies 
shall  be  turned  into  embassies,  forts  into  gate- 
ways, tariffs  into  wastebaskets.  Boy  brigades 
and  military  drills  shall  die  out  even  from 
our  Sunday-schools ;  and  the  difficulties  between 
great  peoples — as  difficulties  doubtless  there 
will  always  be — will  be  settled  not  as  now  by 
the    barbarian    fisticuffs    of    war,    but    in    the 


186     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world. 
There  was  a  time  in  the  far-off  geologic  ages 
when  the  highest  organization  on  this  earth  was 
a  worm,  a  series  of  animated  segments  out- 
wardly linked  together  as  one  animal,  but  each 
with  its  own  circulating  motor  and  nervous 
systems  and  each  in  all,  but  its  outward  form 
a  distinct  existence.  Then  after  long  ages  a 
creature  appeared  of  the  amphioxus  type, 
having  a  faint  thread-like  nerve  running  length- 
wise through  the  segments  and  uniting  them  in 
a  common  life  system.  It  was  a  step  forward, 
that  bit  of  notochord,  which  was  second  in 
importance  only  to  the  appearance  on  the 
planet  of  life  itself,  was  the  beginning  of  a 
backbone  and  a  brain  and  of  all  the  marvels 
of  vertebrate  existence ;  and  it  has  gone  on 
from  species  to  species  till  now,  in  place  of  a 
segmented  worm  crawling  the  earth  as  its 
highest  product,  we  have  articulated  man  walk- 
ing the  planet  as  its  master,  and  unfolded  mind 
walking  the  universe  as  friend  of  its  Maker. 
Society  with  its  different  nations  strung  to- 
gether in  segments  over  the  earth,  outwardly 
one  humanity,  but  each  with  its  separate 
economic,  military  and  governing  systems,  was 
all  through  its  great  historic  ages  only  at  the 
worm  stage  of  its  development.  In  1858  a 
slender    telegraphic    wire    was   laid    across   the 


BETTER  SOCIAL  STATE  187 

sea  connecting  two  of  these  segments,  England 
and  America,  together.  That  wire  was  the 
evolution  of  humanity's  notochord,  that  the 
beginning  of  society's  amphioxus  stage.  It  is 
to  go  on  with  the  race,  as  it  has  with  the  indi- 
vidual, bringing  its  parts  into  ever  closer 
relations.  And  what  man,  with  his  body,  mind 
and  soul,  is  now  to  the  segmented  worm,  that 
the  vertebrated,  vasculated,  brain-governed 
humanity  of  the  future  is  to  be  to  even  the 
mightiest  nations  of  the  past. 

Friends,  the  subject  I  have  thus  imperfectly 
discussed,  is  not  simply  a  refined  philosophical 
speculation,  but  a  matter  of  transcendent 
practical  value.  Human  beings  were  meant  to 
be  not  mere  idle  lookers-on  in  this  part  of 
nature's  work, — not  mere  passive  blocks  wait- 
ing to  be  built  by  other  hands  into  the  coming 
social  state,  but  live  helpers  in  its  doing,  or  as 
the  old  Bible  puts  it,  laborers  together  with 
God.  And  to  give  this  help  wisely  and  well 
they  evidently  must  know  something  of  what 
nature's  plans  are,  see  something  of  what 
nature  is  aiming  to  bring  about.  "John,"  said 
a  dying  woman  to  her  fond  husband,  "you  have 
always  eaten  the  crusts  at  our  table  yourself, 
haven't  you?"  "Yes,"  answered  John,  "I 
always  have."  "John,"  she  continued,  "you 
have  always  eaten  them  because  you  wanted  to 


188     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

save  me  from  doing  so,  haven't  you?"     "Yes,'' 
replied  John  tenderly,  ''that  is  why  I  have 
"John,"  she  gasped  out  with  her  final  breath, 
"I  always  liked  crusts  myself,"  leaving  John 
the  double  sorrow  of  having  sacrificed  himself 
all  his  life  on  the  altar  of  eating  crusts,  and 
sacrificed  her  on  the  same  altar  of  having  no 
crusts  to   eat.     How  many   are  the   reformers 
eating  the  crusts  at  Nature's  table  their  whole 
lives  long,  when  it  is  in  her  own  stomach  they 
are  really  wanted— how  many  the  cross-bearers, 
who,  if  they  only  knew  her  real  likings,  might 
help  things  along  a  great  deal  better  by  eating 
its     soft    parts    themselves!     Rightly    under- 
stood, I   do  not  know  of  anything  in  all  the 
ranges    of   thought   hardly   excepting   religion 
itself,  which  is  so  practical,  so  hopeful,  so  in- 
spiring   as    the    evolutionist's    faith,    anything 
which  amid  all  its  struggles  for  life  and  over- 
shadowing of  death,  has  before  it  so   sure  a 
future  for  alike  great  and  small  as  the  evolu- 
tionist's   work.     During    our    last    war    with 
England,  a  large  frigate  sent  out  to  convoy  a 
fleet  of  merchantmen  from  one  port  to  another 
on   the   Atlantic   coast   was   overtaken   just   at 
nio»ht  by  a  terrific  storm  and  had  hardly  time 
to'signal  its  charge  what  course  to  take  and 
what  rendezvous  to  seek,  when  the  darkness  fell 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION      189 

and  shut  them  all  from  each  other's  sight. 
The  frigate  itself  ably  manned,  after  battling 
three  days  with  the  gale,  succeeded  just  as 
night  was  again  descending,  in  reaching  the 
appointed  port.  But  where  was  its  convoy? 
Not  one  of  them  was  to  be  seen,  and  it  can  well 
be  imagined  with  what  an  anxious  heart  the 
captain  lay  down  to  his  needed  rest.  But  how 
great  was  his  joy,  when  rising  early  the  next 
morning  he  beheld  a  score  of  them  lying  at 
anchor  all  around  him,  their  long,  tapering 
masts  lifted  up  to  heaven  as  if  in  silent  thanks, 
and  at  the  harbor's  mouth  through  the  mist  all 
the  others  borne  in  on  the  ocean's  mighty  flood 
tide,  the  smallest,  dullest  sailer  of  the  fleet,  one 
they  had  feared  would  never  even  in  the  sun- 
shine reach  any  port,  bringing  up  the  rear. 
The  frigate's  instructions  had  not  been  in  vain. 
So  with  evolution  set  to  convoy  all  the  myriad 
interests  of  earth  from  the  port  of  the  past  to 
the  haven  of  the  world's  better  comino-  state. 

mi 

The  storms  and  convulsions  of  time's  sea  and 
the  awful  night  of  the  grave  may  indeed  fall 
upon  them  and  drive  them  wide  apart, — make 
it  look  sometimes  as  if  all  were  to  be  lost.  But 
signaled  by  their  convoy  what  course  to  take, 
and  each  doing  its  own  best,  they,  too,  shall 
weather     all    their    storms,    survive    all     their 


190      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

nights,  and  borne  along  by  nature's  mighty 
flood  tide,  flood  not  for  six  hours  merely,  but 
for  six  millions  of  years,  reach  at  last,  even  the 
slowest,  dullest  sailer  of  them  all,  the  port  of 
the  World's  Coming  Better  Social  State. 


X 


HOW  EVOLUTION  IS  RELATED  TO 
RELIGION 

Evolution  buried  for  ages  as  a  fruitless  seed 
in  the  dust  of  scholastic  books,  and  then  on  its 
first  springing  up  in  the  fields  of  modern 
science,  ridiculed  and  denounced  as  a  "mere 
dirt  philosophy,"  has  become  suddenly,  in  our 
time,  the  pet  word  of  society,  winning  to  itself 
in  a  single  generation  the  adherence,  with 
hardly  an  exception,  of  all  scientific  thinkers, 
the  homage  of  newspapers  and  reviews,  and  the 
respect  even  of  pupils  and  theological  schools. 
It  is  a  popularity,  to  be  sure,  for  which  it  has 
had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  being  often  vulgar- 
ized and  misapplied, — made  a  sort  of  Trilby  in 
the  shops  of  thought;  and  as  a  consequence 
some  of  its  more  sensitive  disciples  are  shrink- 
ing back  a  little  from  its  use.  But  there  is  no 
cheapening  of  its  name  which  can  really 
cheapen  the  thing  itself.  It  is  the  grandest 
philosophical  generalization  the  human  mind 
has  ever  yet  reached,  the  statement  of  a  law 
which  runs  through  everything  in  nature  from 
191 


192      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

the  making  of  a  sod  to  the  making  of  a  soul, 
the  revelation  of  a  tie  which  gives  unity  to  all 
things  in  time  just  as  gravity  does  to  all  things 
in  space.  And  though  it  is  not  yet  by  any 
means  a  completed  system,  though  it  has  many 
missing  links  to  be  supplied,  and  many  vast 
realms  to  be  explored,  its  main  principles  are 
settled  beyond  dispute,  and  transcending  all 
our  ages'  other  magnificent  achievements,  its 
discovery  bids  fair  to  be  the  one  supreme  thing 
which  is  to  make  the  nineteenth  century 
memorable  forever  in  the  annals  of  thought. 

Evolution,  however,  is  not  only  a  grand 
philosophical  theory,  but  is  even  more  a  great 
practical  truth,  one  which  affects  the  aspect  of 
every  object  of  the  universe  man  has  to  deal 
with,  and  it  has  changed  the  point  of  view  from, 
which  the  whole  universe  is  seen.  There  are 
some  beholding  the  change,  who  are  exclaiming 
with  horror  that  "we  are  all  adrift" ;  some 
who,  refusing  to  recognize  it,  are  going  right 
on  with  their  work  as  its  objects  appeared  to 
them  at  the  old  creation  standpoint,  and  some, 
ministers,  alas,  who,  while  recognizing  their 
new  position,  think  the  only  safe  way  is  to  mix 
up  the  two  views,  look  at  nature  and  natural 
science  from  the  standpoint  of  evolution,  and 
at  ethics  and  religion  from  that  of  creation, 
and  who,  accordingly,  are  depicting  the  Bible, 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION      193 

Jesus,  Christianity  and  man  as  having  at  the 
same  time  a  natural  and  a  supernatural  origin. 
It  is  an  impossible  combination ;  the  true  course 
is  to  lay  aside  reverently  every  mental  conclu- 
sion which  is  vitiated  by  being  drawn  from  the 
philosophy  of  the  past,  keeping  only  the  ri- 
pened skill  which  has  come  from  its  study,  and 
redraw  the  picture  from  this  standpoint  of  the 
world's  new  thought. 

Preeminently  is  such  a  change  needed  in 
drawing  our  religious  conclusions.  God,  man, 
society,  soul,  universe,  are  indeed  the  same  in 
themselves  as  of  old,  and  the  light  we  are  to  see 
them  by  is  that  same  divine  Light  that  from 
the  dawn  of  faith  lighteth  every  man  who  com- 
eth  into  the  world.  But  their  perspective,  their 
relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  eye  which 
sees  them,  and  the  parts  of  them  on  which  the 
light  falls, — these  are  widely  different.  Their 
supernatural  sides  and  ends,  often  the  only  ones 
visible  from  the  old  creation  standpoint,  have 
disappeared;  their  natural  ones,  as  never  be- 
fore, come  into  view.  And  henceforth,  there- 
fore, if  we  are  to  have  intellectually  any  com- 
plete and  consistent  setting  forth  of  religion, 
it  must  inevitably  be  the  one  which  comes  from 
the  study  and  use  of  this  philosophy. 

Evolution  is  of  necessity  very  closely  related 
to   religion;  is   not   only  a  new  point  of  view 


194      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

from  which  to  look  at  religious  objects,  but  a 
new  way  into  the  very  heart  of  the  thing  it- 
self. 

All  religions  have  had  a  cosmogony, — the 
Hebrew  Bible  begins  with  one; — all  have  had 
to  be  mixed  up  with  some  kind  of  dirt  phi- 
losophy. For  the  first  thing  to  attract  man's 
attention,  as  it  evolves  into  consciousness,  is 
this  wonderful  material  world  in  which  he  finds 
himself  placed;  the  first  things  to  excite  his 
awe  and  adoration,  the  majesty  and  marvel  of 
it  he  is  everywhere  surrounded  with.  Whence 
did  it  come?  What  is  the  power  which  keeps 
it  moving?  How  can  man  adjust  himself  to 
its  power  so  as  to  get  its  help  and  avoid  its 
harm?  These  are  questions  he  has  to  ask, 
these  the  ones  which  bring  him  face  to  face  with, 
religion.  The  creation  answer  gives  him  an 
outside  maker,  the  evolution  answer  a  maker 
within.  And  while  a  person  may  study  a  manu- 
factured article,  a  house  or  a  world,  and  never 
come  into  very  close  connection  with  the  being 
who  put  it  together,  he  cannot  study  an  evolv- 
ing one,  a  flower,  a  man  or  a  universe,  and 
not  feel  that  to  know  it  all  through,  root  and 
all  and  all  in  all,  he  must,  as  with  Tennyson's 
flower  in  the  crannied  wall,  know  what  God  is, 
know  something  of  its  indwelling  originating 
power. 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION      195 

Under  the  doctrine,  also,  that  everything  in 
the  universe  is  the  outgrowth,  by  natural  laws 
and  forces,  of  its  own  preceding  state,  religion, 
as  a  thing  of  the  universe,  has  to  be  recognized 
as  such  a  growth ;  a  plant  which  somehow  must 
have  had  its  seed,  a  species  which  somewhere 
must  have  had  its  origin ;  and  evolution,  there- 
fore, to  be  thoroughgoing,  must  show  what 
its  seed  was,  investigate  the  species  out  of  which 
it  originated,  study  its  environment  and  its 
inner  laws  and  forces,  and,  in  short,  do  by  it 
as   it  does  with  all   other  growing  things. 

Especially  does  it  have  a  close  connection 
with  the  study  not  only  of  religion,  but  of  re- 
ligions. It  is  impossible  to  know  any  one  of 
them  by  knowing  that  one  alone.  They  must 
be  classified  and  compared  and  their  relation- 
ships with  each  other  traced  out,  that  is,  the 
principles  of  evolution  applied  to  their  investi- 
gation. It  is  the  lack  of  such  a  guide  which 
has  led  theologians  to  place  the  Old  Testament 
as  an  authority  on  the  same  level  as  the  New; 
mix  together  in  their  conceptions  of  Deity  the 
attributes  of  the  Jewish  Jehovah  and  the 
Christian  "Our  Father" ;  go  back  to  the  literal 
words  of  Jesus  and  his  apostles  for  their  state- 
ment of  what  Christianity  is ;  coordinate  as 
brothers  and  sisters,  religions  whose  real  rela- 
tionship  was   that  of  parent  and   child,   uncle 


196     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

and  nephew;  and  even  in  their  definition  of  re- 
ligion seek  for  some  element  that  was  common 
alike  to  its  fetich  seed  and  its  full-grown 
civilized  tree.  It  is  only  the  study  of  how  they 
have  been  evolved  which  can  show  their  true 
connection.  Liberality  will  be  placed  by  it  on  a 
solid  scientific  foundation,  and  while  intensi- 
fying the  faith  of  its  disciples  in  their  highest 
form,  will  show  that  for  its  age  and  environ- 
ment even  their  lowest  was  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Equally  close  is  its  connection  with 
religion  on  its  humanitarian  and  ethical  side. 
To  be  sure  of  man's  brotherhood  we  must  know 
something  of  his  fatherhood.  To  deal  rightly 
with  his  divisions  of  race,  and  with  their 
hatreds,  wars  and  persecutions  they  must  be 
studied  in  the  light  of  nature's  own  principle 
of  differentiation.  The  wide  contrasts  be- 
tween the  moral  principles  in  savage  and  in 
civilized  lands  can  be  understood  only  by  tak- 
ing into  account  their  wide  contrasts  of  en- 
vironment. And  in  all  man's  practical  religious 
work  for  the  bettering  of  himself  and  society, 
with  evolution  still  going  on  in  the  world,  the 
only  way  in  which  he  can  hope  to  succeed  is 
not  to  act  at  cross  purposes  with  it,  but  to  fall 
in  with  its  trend;  conform  to  its  laws  and 
principles ;  show  himself  and  what  he  is  aiming 
for,  the  fittest  to  survive;  to  do  which  he  evi- 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION      197 

dentlj  must  know  what  its  trend  and  its  laws 
and   forces   are. 

Finally,  if  there  is  to  be  a  future  world  for 
the  human  race,  it  must  be  the  outcome  in  some 
way  of  this  present  world.     And  its  outcome 
how?     Why,   in   precisely   the   same   way   that 
this  present  is  the  outcome  of  those  which  are 
past,  by  its  evolving  through  natural  laws  and 
forces     from     its     preceding     earthly     estate. 
And  this  means  that  its  beginnings,  its  promise, 
its   evidence   are   now  and   here.     The   process 
of  its  evolution  may  well  be,  as  it  has  been  with 
the  present  one  many  times  in  the  past,  by  the 
origin  of  a  new  species  of  world  as  different 
from  our  terrestrial  one  as  the  oak  is  from  the 
acorn,   or   the   grown   animal   from   its   proto- 
plasmic cell.     But  the  acorn,  the  cell,  the  pre- 
ceding estate,  not  the  less   are  to-day  in  our 
streets,  in  our  churches,  in  our  homes,  in  our- 
selves ;  have  in  them  the  promise  and  the  potency 
of  all  its  splendor,  all  its  fineness,  all  its  eter- 
nity ;  are  what  a  perfected  knowledge  of  evolu- 
tion  would   enable  us   now   to    see.     And  it  is 
along  such  lines,  not  fanciful  and  far-fetched, 
but  logical  and  scientific,  that  this  "dirt  phi- 
losophy" is  related  to  what  is  humanity's  fair- 
est  hope  and  religion's   crowning  truth. 

From  dust  to  Deity,  from  cell  to  sainthood, 
from  monad  to  morals,  the  roots  of  the  tree  of 


198     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

life  in  the  mist  of  the  universe's  primal  nebula, 
— that  is  its  scope.  It  is  not  indeed  a  story  of 
unbroken  progress,  or  of  an  altogether  dressed 
up  Sunday-clothes  goodness.  It  has  its  dark 
and  bloody  chapters,  its  myriads  of  "red-with- 
ravin"  actors,  its  long  pages  of  degeneracy 
and  dissolution,  and  its  agencies  that  no  one 
would  think  of  setting  up  in  a  modern  pulpit 
as  those  of  the  Christian  ideal.  But  taken  as 
a  whole,  what  poem  ever  had  a  more  epic  gran- 
deur, what  history  a  clearer  evidence  that 
through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
what  gospel  along  with  its  Gethsemane  and 
Calvary  the  proclamation  of  a  richer  good 
news?  As  a  religious  revelation  it  is  of  the 
same  order  as  our  printed  Bible.  It  opens 
with  a  book  of  Genesis,  and  gives  us  the  long 
bondage  of  its  children  in  the  world's  Egypt, 
the  weary  wanderings  of  their  feet  in  the  wil- 
derness of  nature,  the  fierce  battles  they  had 
to  fight  for  civilization's  promised  land,  the 
bloody  reigns  of  their  judges  and  kings,  and 
the  horror  of  their  imprecatory  Psalms.  But 
it  gives  also  the  rugged  grandeur  of  Sinai's 
laws,  the  long  line  of  nature's  prophets,  fore- 
telling ever  a  better  day,  the  coming  on  earth 
in  due  time  of  the  son  of  man,  the  acts  of  a 
myriad  apostles,  and  the  vision  at  last  of  a 
New  Jerusalem  and  a  tree  of  everlasting  life. 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION      199 

And  reading  it  with  the  same  reverence  that  we 
give  to  the  printed  page,  we  shall  find,  I  think, 
that  the  word  of  evolution  coming  through  the 
lips  of  science,  not  less  than  the  word  of  Scrip- 
ture coming  through  saint  and  sage,  is  the 
word  of  God. 


XI 

DOES  EVOLUTION  NECESSITATE  A 

FIRST  CAUSE? 

The  existence  of  the  natural  world  with  its 
grandeur  and  beauty,  its  marvel  of  life  and  its 
myriad  apparent  instances  of  intelligent  de- 
sign, has  been  regarded  by  the  religious  mind 
in  all  ages  as  one  of  its  strong  arguments 
for  the  existence  behind  it  of  a  divine  origi- 
nating Cause.  As  every  house  has  its  builder, 
and  every  watch  its  maker,  so,  it  has  been  rea- 
soned, this  great  house  of  nature,  this  mighty 
succession  of  events,  a  little  of  whose  time- 
element  the  watch  is  meant  to  measure,  must 
have  had  correspondingly  its  builder  and  its 
maker.  And  as  before  the  age  of  machinery, 
everything  which  man  did  he  did  immediately 
with  his  own  hand,  and  each  time  by  a  direct 
act  of  the  will,  it  was  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  divine  Cause  proceeded  in  the  same  way, 
made  the  universe  at  first  and  everything  in  it 
as  fast  as  it  appeared  by  his  own  direct  touch, 
and  as  the  outcome  in  each   case  of  his  own 

special  volition. 

200 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     201 

"God  of  the  earth,  the  sea,  the  sky, 
Maker  of  all  above,  below, 
Creation  lives  and  moves  in  thee 
Thy  present  life  thro'  all  doth  flow." 

It  is  an  argument  which  modern  science  from 
its  very  birth  has  tended  in  some  ways  greatly 
to     weaken.     While     enlarging     immeasurably 
man's  conception  of  the  size  and  wonder  of  the 
universe, — and   so  of  the   Being  from  whom  it 
came, — its    continual    discovery    of    laws    and 
forces,  more  and  more  of  them,  in  nature  itself, 
that  are  immediately  producing  the  phenomena 
once    ascribed    direct    to    Deity; — as,    for    in- 
stance,   gravity,    its    planetary    motions;    the 
unequal  heating  of  the  atmosphere,  its  winds; 
and  the  violation  of  sanitary  laws,  its  diseases ; 
— these  things  known  as  secondary  causes,  have 
pushed  farther  and  farther  out  of  sight  alike 
the  need  and  the  place  of  a  First  Cause.     Some 
positions,    to    be    sure,    along   the   way    of  the 
arguments'  retreat  have  been  seized  and  held  by 
the   church   as   necessitating,   in   their   case   at 
least,  the  direct  action  of  Deity ; — among  them 
the  first  appearance   of  life  on  the  earth,  the 
coming  of  man,  the  rising  of  ethics  and  reli- 
gion,  and   preeminently   the   advent   of   Christ 
and  Christianity, — but  their  defense  all  along 
has  been  evidently  the  lack  of  some  more  com- 
prehensive natural  principle  for  their  explana- 


202     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

tion.  And  now  in  our  time,  evolution,  the 
crown  of  all  the  sciences,  has  come  on  to  the 
field  apparently  to  complete  the  process,  teach- 
ing as  this  very  principle  that  everything  in 
the  universe,  even  life,  man  and  religion,  is  the 
outgrowth  by  natural  laws  and  forces  of  its 
own  preceding  state;  that  matter  itself  had 
within  it  from  the  very  start  the  promise  and 
potency  of  all  life;  and  that  what  has  been 
thought  so  long  to  be  design,  and  the  proof, 
therefore,  of  a  designer,  is  really  only  the 
survival  of  what  natural  selection  and  the 
struggle  for  existence  have  shown  to  be  the 
fittest  for  its  environment;  a  theory  which 
"solves  by  some  great  force  the  mystery  of 
things,  sees  in  dead  matter  both  their  source 
and  end;"  and  leaves  no  more  need  of  a  divine 
Cause  to  come  in  among  them  than  there  is  for 
a  farmer  to  take  the  place  of  nature  in  giving 
his  cattle  their  eyes  and  ears,  or  his  trees  their 
flowers  and  fruit. 

Is  this  the  real  inevitable  logic  of  evolu- 
tion? Must  its  disciples  in  accepting  it  give 
up  the  argument  for  Deity  which  is  based  on 
nature,  and  give  up  with  it  all  belief  in  a 
divine,  intelligent  First  Cause?  It  is  the  awful 
fear  that  such  must  be  its  outcome  which  is 
the  secret,  beyond  question.  As  Mr.  Fiske 
says,  of  the  violent  opposition  from  the  reli- 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    203 

gious  world  with  which  evolution  was  received 
at  first; — not  so  much  that  it  gave  man  a 
monkey  for  an  ancestor  as  that  it  took  away 
apparently  his  divine  Father,  not  so  much 
that  it  made  the  Scriptures  false  as  that  it 
seemed  to  rob  the  universe  of  its  meaning. 
And  under  such  an  impression,  it  is  no  wonder 
it  was  heard  with  dismay,  for  there  is  no  splen- 
dor of  a  truth  which  can  take  the  place  in  the 
human  soul  of  a  truth-giver,  no  enlargement 
of  the  house  it  lives  in  which  can  make  up  to 
it  for  the  loss  of  the  house's  head. 

Evolution  does  indeed  have  its  atheistic,  or, 
at  any  rate,  its  agnostic  aspects,  and  it  has 
not  been  lacking  in  followers  who  have  ac- 
cepted them  as  its  real  teaching;  but  there 
are  others  who,  instead  of  acknowledging  its 
guilt  in  this  direction,  have  sought  to  show 
that  it  affords  in  its  own  principles  a  new  and 
strengthened  argument  for  the  existence  of  a 
First  Cause. 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  they  have  done 
so  is  by  pointing  out  that  it  implies  of  neces- 
sity a  beginning  of  things  in  what  has  been 
evolved,  and  that  it  never  by  any  possibility 
could  have  begun  itself.  The  most  formidable 
objection  against  the  theistic  argument  hith- 
erto has  been  the  alternative  theory  that  the 
universe  never  had  any  beginning;  that  it  is 


204     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

self-existent;  and  that  what  is  going  on  in  it 
now   has    been   going   on    forever;   an    infinite 
round  of  summer  and  winter,  birth  and  death, 
growth  and  decay, 
"A  mighty  whirling  wheel  of  strife  and  stress" 

without  starting  and  without  stopping—a 
theory,  it  was  urged,  which  is  no  more  in- 
herently difficult  than  the  doctrine  of  a  self- 
existent  creator  whose  life  had  been  going  on 
forever  without  a  First  Cause.  And  it  was 
an  objection  that  the  old  natural  theology  was 
never  able  really  to  meet. 

It  is  one,  however,  that  evolution  at  first 
sight  does  seem  fairly  to  overthrow.  For 
though  some  evolutionists  have  claimed  that 
their  science  is  only  the  description  of  a  proc- 
ess, and  has  nothing  to  do  with  beginnings, 
such  a  narrowing  of  it  has  no  warrant  either 
in  its  history  or  in  its  principles.  The  very 
name  of  Darwin's  great  work  in  exposition  of 
its  organic  field  is  the  "Origin  of  Species" ;  and 
its  whole  professed  object,  as  Herbert  Spencer, 
Haeckel,  Huxley  and  others  of  its  great  ex- 
pounders, set  it  forth,  is  to  trace  out  the  law 
by  which  everything  which  now  exists,  no  mat- 
ter how  highly  differentiated  and  integrated 
it  may  have  become,  must  have  had  its  starting 
point  in  some  kind  of  homogeneity.     The  fact 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     205 

is,  it  is  a  necessity,  which  appears  to  be  involved 
in  the  very  idea  of  evolution,  the  evolution  at 
any  rate  of  any  finite  thing.  Where  there  is  no 
progress,  only  a  series  of  changes  out  of  which 
nothing  comes,  its  changes  may  indeed  have 
gone  on  forever  without  a  beginning  and  con- 
tinue forever  without  an  end;  but  the  moment 
you  introduce  the  idea  of  differentiation,  one 
of  the  stages  as  we  saw  of  evolution, — a  stage 
in  which  the  present  condition  of  a  thing  has 
been  reached  by  dividing  and  varying  the  ma- 
terial that  composed  its  preceding  condition, 
going  back  to  ever  simpler  and  simpler  forms, — 
that  moment  you  bring  in  the  necessity  of  a 
beginning.  You  all  remember  that  old  prob- 
lem in  arithmetic  which  used  to  be  given  us  in 
our  school  days:  If  a  single  cent  was  put  to 
interest  at  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era, 
what  would  the  amount  of  it  be  in  our  day? 
and  how  we  used  to  wish  that  some  old  an- 
cestor of  ours  living  then,  instead  of  spending 
all  his  cents  for  candy  or  marbles,  had  been 
thoughtful  enough  to  put  one  of  them  in  the 
bank  for  our  benefit.  But,  however  large  the 
sum,  we  now  should  have  had  quintillions  on 
quintillions  of  dollars,  enough  to  have  filled 
not  only  our  globe,  but  this  whole  universe ; 
and  however  far  back  the  interest  began,  even 
with   that    old    anthropoid    ancester   who    had 


206     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

a  tail  and  lived  in  a  tree ;  we  all  knew  it  had  to 
begin  with  that  first  cent.  So  with  the  evolu- 
tion of  all  our  visible  universe  itself.  Its  ac- 
cumulations are  only  a  question  of  more 
intricate  interests,  only  a  case  in  which  we  have 
had  the  very  thing  done  for  us  that  we  wished 
as  children;  and,  enormous  as  the  amount  now 
is,  it  is  equally  true  that  it  all  had  to  begin 
with  the  putting  to  interest  of  that  first  far- 
off  cent. 

But  if  there  must  have  been  thus  a  begin- 
ning to  the  universe,  an  accumulation,  step  by 
step,  of  its  enormous  amount,  who,  this  argu- 
ment asks,  could  have  been  its  beginner,  who 
the  investor  in  nature's  bank  of  its  first  won- 
derful cent?  It  could  not  have  been  its  own 
beginner.  None  of  us  as  schoolboys  in  our 
wildest  wishes  ever  thought  of  a  cent  that  on 
its  way  to  buy  candy  or  marbles  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Christian  era,  or  at  the  creation  of 
the  world,  had  stopped  at  a  savings  bank  and 
for  our  benefit  put  itself  to  interest.  Matter 
and  force,  the  supposed  constituents  of  the  uni- 
verse's primal  homogeneity,  or  even  that  still 
simpler  world-stuff  out  of  which  even  matter 
and  force  may  have  been  differentiated, — these, 
with  all  the  other  potencies  that  materialists 
have  ascribed  to  them,  have  never  had 
that,     to     begin     with,     of     self-determining 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    207 

will-power,  never  the  ability  to  say  to  each 
other  at  some  point  in  eternity,  Go  to,  now, 
let  us  evolve  a  universe, — never  the  kindly  fore- 
thought which  would  prompt  them  to  invest  a 
cent  out  of  their  pockets  for  a  little  humanity 
boy,  who  was  to  come  into  existence  myriads 
of  ages  after  their  day. 

Yet,  without  such  powers,  think  for  a  mo- 
ment how  impossible  was  the  world's  self-origi- 
nation. All  the  laws  and  properties  which  were 
in  its  matter  and  force  then  at  the  world's 
beginning,  must  have  been  in  them  always, 
otherwise,  as  you  see,  their  state  would  not 
have  been  a  beginning;  but  if  in  them  always, 
then  inasmuch  as  they  could  not  start  them- 
selves, they  must  have  been  always  in  opera- 
tion; and,  if  always  in  operation,  then  the 
universe,  or  at  any  rate,  all  that  is  finite  in  it, 
must  from  all  eternity  have  been  along,  at  least 
as  far  as  it  is  now. 

Mr.  Spencer  in  his  "First  Principles"  at- 
tempts to  get  rid  of  this  difficulty  about  the  in- 
itiatory impulse,  by  supposing  the  original  neb- 
ulous matter  of  the  universe  was  only  partially 
diffused,  and  that  its  forces  were  in  a  sort  of 
balanced  condition  which  the  slightest  disturb- 
ance would  destroy  and  set  in  operation.  But 
the  chapter  in  which  he  does  so,  entitled  "The 
Instability  of  the  Homogeneous"  is  the  most 


208      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

unsatisfactory  of  all  his  works.  If  the  nebul- 
ous matter  was  not  universally  diffused,  it 
could  not  have  been  in  a  state  of  homogeneity, 
— would  have  had  an  outside  and  an  inside,  and 
the  outside  particles,  being  more  acted  upon 
by  gravity  than  those  within,  it  would  from 
all  eternity  have  been  evolving,  and,  being 
finite,  would  from  all  eternity  have  been 
evolved. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  original  material 
was  equally  diffused  through  all  space,  as  Kant 
and  Laplace  and  others  have  assumed,  and  at 
rest,  as  the  friction  of  its  particles  would  have 
necessitated,  it  never  by  any  known  natural 
force, — gravity,  cohesive  attraction,  chemical 
affinity,  or  the  like, — could  have  changed  its 
condition.  Never  by  gravity,  because  being  in- 
finitely diffused,  each  atom  would  have  been 
equally  drawn  in  every  direction ;  and  never  by 
cohesive  attraction  or  chemical  affinity  because 
in  order  to  have  them  act,  its  atoms  must  have 
parted  with  some  of  their  heat; — impossible 
again,  inasmuch  as  filling  all  space,  each  one 
would  have  to  receive  from  the  others  exactly 
as  much  as  it  gave  to  them.  Thus  whatever 
condition  is  assumed  as  the  original  one,  it  is 
inconceivable  how  the  universe  with  matter  and 
force  alone  could  have  had  any  absolute  begin- 
ning; the  difficulty  being  as  in  the  case  of  a 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     209 

balky  horse,  either  its  starting  too  soon  or  else 
its  refusing  to  start  at  all. 

It  is  an  inconceivability  which  Haeckel,  the 
most  scientific  and  thoroughgoing  of  all  evolu- 
tionists, sees  and  acknowledges,  the  only  one  in 
all  his  vast  system  which  he  does  see  and  ac- 
knowledge. "A  great  and  unsolved  difficulty ," 
he  says  ("History  of  Creation"),  "lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  cosmological  gas-theory  furnishes 
no  starting  point  at  all  in  explanation  of  the 
first  impulse  which  caused  the  rotatory  motion 
in  the  gas-filled  universe."  And  it  is  one  also 
which  Mr.  Spencer,  if  not  in  his  chapter  on 
"The  Instability  of  the  Homogeneous,"  yet 
elsewhere  sees  and  acknowledges. 

He  says,  "The  ultimate  mystery  continues  as 
great  as  ever;  the  problem  of  existence  is  not 
solved  by  evolution ;  it  is  simply  removed  farther 
back ;  and  those  who  hold  it  legitimate  to  argue 
from  phenomena  to  noumena  may  rightly  con- 
tend that  the  nebular  hypothesis  implies  a  First 
Cause  as  much  transcending  the  mechanical 
God  of  Paley  as  his  does  the  fetich  of  a  sav- 
age." 

The  difficulty,  it  is  claimed,  is  one  that  the 
doctrine  of  an  intelligent  Will  Power  at  the  head 
of  the  universe  does  solve,  and  is  one,  there- 
fore, which  logically  compels  his  recognition. 
It  is  like  the  weaving  of  a  piece  of  cloth  by  a 


210     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

human  being  as  compared  with  its  being  done 
by  an  automatic  loom.  Both  the  man  and  the 
machine  have  physically  the  same  mechanical 
devices  and  use  directly  a  power  which  is  sub- 
ject to  the  same  natural  laws.  But  while  the 
machine,  the  moment  it  is  wound  up,  has  to 
start  the  weaving,  if  it  is  going  to  start  it  at 
all,  and  has  to  go  on  with  it  without  stopping 
till  the  work  is  all  done,  thus  completing  it  in 
a  definite  time,  the  man  with  his  power  of 
choice  can  wait  as  long  as  he  pleases  before 
setting  his  loom  in  motion  and  can  delay  as 
long  as  he  pleases  before  his  cloth  is  done. 
So  while  the  universe,  if  self-evolving,  would 
from  all  eternity  have  to  be  evolved,  the  uni- 
verse with  volitional  First  Cause  would  be  a 
loom  whose  power-belt  could  be  turned  on  at 
any  point  of  time,  setting  its  warp  of  atoms 
and  molecules,  suns  and  stars  leaping  up  and 
down,  and  between  them,  flying  back  and  forth, 
its  shuttles  of  heat  and  cold,  life  and  death, 
threaded  with  the  mystic  woof  which  hour  by 
hour  weaves  the  world.  And  the  fact  that  its 
long  web  is  yet  in  the  process  of  weaving  and 
has  not  from  all  eternity  been  finished  and  laid 
away,  is  evidence,  it  is  claimed,  that  it  has  at 
its  head  a  great  living  weaver  who  chose  at  some 
special  point  of  time  to  apply  its  power  and  set 
it  in  operation. 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    211 

Is  the  argument  sound?  At  first  view  it 
seems  to  be  so, — seems  all  that  even  Mr.  Spen- 
cer admits  as  to  its  cogency ;  and  I  am  free 
to  confess  that  personally  for  awhile  I  rested 
in  its  conclusion  and  rejoiced  in  evolution,  be- 
yond all  even  of  its  philosophical  beauty,  be- 
cause it  was  apparently  so  logically  theistic; 
made  nature  reveal,  afar  off,  to  be  sure,  yet 
with  intellectual  certainty,  the  existence  of  its 
God. 

But  more  careful  thought  shows  alike  its 
inconclusiveness  to  the  mind  and  its  unsatis- 
factoriness  to  the  heart. 

First  of  all,  as  regards  a  divine  First  Cause, 
himself,  to  ascribe  to  him  will-power  does  not 
really  remove  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  how 
he  could  have  willed  to  begin  the  universe  at 
any  special  point  of  time.  Where  there  is 
will-power  there  must  be  motive  to  act  on  it 
before  it  can  choose,  just  as  certainly  as  where 
there  is  a  water-wheel  there  must  be  water  to 
make  it  go ;  this  so  far  as  we  can  see,  as  truly 
in  an  infinite  as  in  a  finite  will ;  and  the  ques- 
tion inevitably  arises  as  to  how  in  an  all-per- 
fect and  unchangeable  Being  there  could  be  a 
new  motive  arise.  A  motive  must  have  an 
origin  as  surely  as  a  motion;  and  to  say  that 
a  First  Cause  was  moved  at  its  beginning  to 
start  the  universe,  only  sets  us  out  in  search 


212     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

of  what  was  the  first  cause  of  that  First  Cause, 
and  transfers  the  endless  series  from  the  realm 
of  matter  to  the  realm  of  spirit. 

Worse  still,  it  makes  matter  and  force  origi- 
nally separate  from  the  First  Cause  of  the 
universe  and  able  to  exist  without  him  till  he 
was  needed  to  set  it  in  motion ;  and  then,  after 
he  had  done  so,  separate  from  him  again,  and 
in  no  need  of  his  presence;  makes  the  world 
atheistic,  therefore,  except  at  the  one  single 
moment  of  its  birth.  It  differs  from  that  half- 
way evolution  which  holds  God  interfered  with 
the  processes  of  natural  law  and  force  at  cer- 
tain special  periods,  as  at  the  introduction  of 
life,  of  man,  and  of  religion,  only  by  going  a  lit- 
tle further  back,  going  to  the  beginning  of  the 
universe  instead  of  going  to  the  beginning  of 
some  special  part  of  it ;  and  logically  and  con- 
sistently, if  we  make  him  thus  a  miracle — God 
at  one  period,  we  might  just  as  well  allow  him 
to  be  such  at  all  periods. 

Then,  as  regards  the  beginning  of  the  uni- 
verse itself,  it  really  explains  nothing; — drives 
the  sceptic  as  to  Deity  only  into  an  apparent 
corner.  All  the  difficulties  as  to  how  gravity, 
cohesive  attraction,  chemical  affinity,  and  the 
like,  could  be  kept  from  acting  on  a  finitely 
diffused  homogeneity,  or  be  made  to  act  on  an 
infinitely    diffused   one,    are   exactly    as    great 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     213 

under  the  supposition  of  a  will-power  to  set 
things  in  motion  at  first,  as  under  that  of  their 
self-beginning.  Of  course  it  is  easy  to  say 
that  an  Infinite  Being  with  a  single  .word  could 
speak  them  all  out  of  the  way.  But  this  would 
be  resorting  to  magic  to  get  rid  of  them  in- 
stead of  natural  law;  and,  if  we  are  going  to 
have  a  fiat  universe  at  all,  we  might  as  well 
hold  with  the  old  theology  that  Deity  spoke  it 
all  into  being  ready-made  out  of  nothing  six 
thousand  years  ago,  as  to  be  to  all  the  trouble 
of  tracing  it  back  over  the  long,  slow  path  of 
natural  evolution  millions  of  years,  and  then, 
even  there,  have  to  evoke  a  divine  fiat. 

Still  further,  admitting  all  that  the  argu- 
ment claims  as  to  this  present  universe's  having 
had  a  beginning,  it  does  not  follow  as  the  only 
alternative  that  will-power  must  have  been  its 
beginner.  It  may  be  said,  and  it  has  been  said, 
that  the  present  universe, — beginning,  evolu- 
tion, and  all, — may  be  only  one  of  an  infinite, 
self-existing  series  which  has  been,  and  is. to  be, 
evolved ;  that  the  homogeneous  elements  out 
of  which  it  started  may  have  been  simply  the 
remnants  over  from  the  decay  of  its  myriad 
predecessors,  and  that  the  power  which  enabled 
it  to  start  may  have  been  merely  the  rhythmic 
action  of  the  old  indwelling  power  which  made 
the  others  decay  and  which,  by  the  law  of  the 


214     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

conservation  of  energy,  must  have  been  gath- 
ered up  somewhere;  just  as  a  pendulum,  when 
it  has  swung  its  full  extent  one  way,  comes  for 
a  moment  to  a  dead  stand,  in  which  its  po- 
tential and  kinetic  forces  exactly  balance  each 
other,  after  which,  without  the  need  of  any 
new  touch,  but  simply  by  its  own  inherent 
weight,  it  begins  to  move  the  other  way.  Or, 
instead  of  the  entire  universe  coming  to  such 
a  stand  at  the  same  time,  it  may  be  that  like 
summer  and  winter  on  the  earth,  its  evolution 
and  dissolution  may  alternate  from  one  part 
of  it  to  the  other,  the  released  forces  which  in 
one  hemisphere  have  produced  its  decay,  im- 
mediately passing  into  the  other  to  produce 
its  growth. 

It  is  a  theory  incapable  of  direct  proof,  but 
which  does  have,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  a 
multitude  of  actual,  known  phenomena  in  this 
present  world  that  analogically  are  in  its  fa- 
vor. Evolution  here  on  earth  is  everywhere 
rising  by  its  own  inherent  laws  and  forces  out 
of  dissolution.  Plants,  animals,  men,  nations, 
civilizations,  even  religions,  are  born,  grow  to 
maturity,  linger  a  little  while,  and  then  decay, 
only  to  have  others  out  of  their  dust  do  the 
same.  All  the  indications  of  science  are  that  the 
earth  itself  is  at  last  to  fulfill  the  law  it  has 
imposed  on  such  myriads  of  its  children,  "Dust 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     215 

thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return." 
And  looking  up,  the  skies,  with  all  their  splen- 
dor, have  in  them  already  the  shadow  here  and 
there  of  their  celestial  doom, — stars  like  Anta- 
res,  dolphins  of  the  upper  deep,  whose  flashing 
colors  are  those  of  expiring  suns ;  globes  like 
the  moon  that  are  the  dead  leaves  yet  undis- 
solved of  their  vast  stellar  woods ;  and  nebulas 
like  those  of  Pegasus  and  the  Hunting  Dogs; 
whose  aspect  is  best  explained  as  that  of  vast 
systems  of  worlds,  equal  in  size  to  our  Milky 
Way,  which  are  just  ending,  rather  than  just 
beginning,  their  lives ;  all  suggesting  that  what 
is  the  round  of  birth,  growth,  decay  and  birth 
again  here  on  earth,  is  the  law  of  the  universe 
as  a  whole.  It  is  a  use  of  its  material  vastly 
more  in  accordance  with  the  economy  of  nature 
than  to  think  of  it  as  remaining  forever,  after 
its  life,  a  huge  corpse  filling  space ; — is  the  only 
known  way  in  which  the  great  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy  can  be  carried  out ; — the 
only  imaginable  way  of  answering  \yhat  be- 
comes of  those  vast  tides  of  ether  waves  which 
in  the  shape  of  heat,  light  and  actinic  force, 
are  sweeping  off  from  every  sun  and  star. 
And  with  it  recognized  as  a  possibility,  it  will 
be  seen  at  once  that  all  the  cogency  of  the 
argument  for  a  First  Cause,  that  is  based  on 
the  need  of  it  at  the  beginning  of  evolution,  is 


216      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

taken  away.  What  made  the  homogeneity  out 
of  which  the  universe  came,  broke  it  up.  Death 
itself  had  in  it  the  seeds  of  life ;  and  as  the  last 
expiring  moment  of  December  gives  birth  to 
the  first  new  moment  of  January,  so,  it  ex- 
plains, the  last  expiring  breath  of  the  uni- 
verse's old  order  of  things  may  have  been  the 
power  which  started  the  present  one  on  its 
course. 

Then,  after  all,  it  is  the  failure  of  an  argu- 
ment, promising  as  it  seemed  at  first,  over 
which,  rightly  considered,  there  is  really  no 
reason  to  mourn.  Were  it  successful,  it  would 
have  given  the  inquirer  only  an  attribute  of 
Deity  and  not  Deity  himself,  only  a  chronolog- 
ical First  Cause  and  not  an  always  and  all-per- 
vading presence.  And  its  want  of  success  only 
shows  that  the  Eternal  is  not  to  be  captured 
like  an  elephant,  by  driving  him  with  the  weap- 
ons of  logic  into  a  penned-up  corner  of  the 
universe ;  not  to  be  found  in  the  earthquake, 
the  thunder  and  the  whirlwind  of  a  beginning, 
any  more  than  in  the  displays  of  them  after- 
wards ;  and  it  gives  new  significance  to  the 
Scripture  words,  "Spiritual  things  are  to  be 
spiritually  discerned." 

But  leaving  this  part  of  the  inquiry  as 
fruitless,    there    is    another   and    grander   way 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    217 

in  which  evolution  does  really  necessitate  the 
recognition  of  a  First  Cause;  one,  also,  which 
is  in  harmony  with  the  Scripture  dictum  as 
to  his  spiritual  discernment;  and  that  is  by 
its  leading  to  him  not  merely  as  the  source 
once  of  some  far-off  beginning,  but  as  that 
out  of  which  and  in  which  now  and  always  all 
things  rise  and  are.  It  makes  him  the  First 
Cause  of  the  universe  in  the  same  way  that  the 
fountain  is  the  first  cause,  every  moment,  of 
the  stream  which  winds  through  the  valley,  and 
that  the  sun  is  the  first  cause  age  after  age  of 
the  light  which  goes  pulsing  off  into  space. 
Nay,  even  these  connections  do  not  express  all 
the  closeness  of  his  evolutionary  relation  to  the 
sum  of  things,  for  the  stream  after  it  leaves 
the  fountain,  and  the  light  after  it  leaves  the 
sun  are  separated  in  space  from  their  source, 
but  the  universal  First  Cause  is  not  conceived 
of  by  evolution  as  separate  even  in  space  from 
anything  to  which  he  gives  birth,  any  more 
than  gravity  is  separate  from  a  moving  planet, 
or  life  from  a  living  body ;  but  as  continually 
operative  in  every  atom  as  that  from  which  it 
comes, — 

"A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things," 


£18     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

a  spirit,  a  Being  who  wills  and  loves  and  works 
forever  the  eternal  right.  Under  its  reign  the 
old  miracles,  such  as  the  turning  of  water  into 
wine,  disappear,  but  the  whole  world  shines  forth 
with  the  ever  new  miracle  of  turning  chaos  into 
cosmos;  the  old  Bibles  lose  their  prominence, 
but  all  truth  becomes  his  revelation;  super- 
naturalism  sets,  but  atom  and  star  rise  up  his 
prophets,  flower  in  the  crannied  wall  and  nebula 
in  Orion's  belt  his  apostles.  He  is  made  by 'it, 
as  never  before,  his  own  teacher.  The  truths 
of  transcendentalism  join  hands  with  those  of 
sense.  He  is  not  merely  an  occasional  visitor 
to  earth,  but  from  its  birth  out  of  the  fire  mist 
till  now  its  perpetual  presence;  its  matter  and 
force  not  agents  he  operates  upon  from  the 
outside,  but  parts  of  himself ;  the  universe  every- 
where no  longer  an  unconscious  machine,  run 
with  his  hand  on  its  crank,  but  a  live  tissue 
thridded  directly  with  his  muscles  and  nerves 
and  growing,  as  all  live  things  have  to,  with  a 
vitalizing*  force  in  contact  with  its  every  atom. 
All  the  poet's  raptures  over  nature ;  all  which 
even  a  Wordsworth  has  sung  about 

"A   sense  sublime 
Of  something   far  more  deeply  interfused" 

than  its  outward  charms ;  all  the  emotions  of 
the    religious    worshiper    in    the    presence    of 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    219 

mountain,  sea,  and  midnight  sky,  are  justified 
by  it  as  scientific  realities ;  and  not  only  those 
who  have  the  spiritual  and  poetic  vision,  but 
those  even  who  have  only  the  eyes  of  sense,  all 
who  can  see  anything,  can  see  God.  Yet 
giving  thus  everything  that  pantheism  ever  did, 
it  separates  itself,  with  its  recognition  of  will- 
power, by  a  broad  impassable  line  from  pan- 
theism as  such ;  is  in  its  essence  theism  still.  It 
does  not  solve  all  the  problems  about  Deity ; 
those  about  his  own  mode  of  being;  or  how 
existing  from  all  eternity  in  connection  with 
matter  and  force  he  could  have  always  been 
what  he  is  without  exerting  his  will  upon  them ; 
or  the  relation  of  evolution  to  his  unchange- 
ableness ;  or  any  of  those  mighty  ones  Mr. 
Spencer  presents  as  constituting  his  unknow- 
ableness ; — makes  him  in  some  respects  a  greater 
mystery  than  ever  before.  Yet  even  here  it 
has  its  side  of  hope,  has  it  in  its  very  name. 
And  with  man,  society,  the  universe,  all  that  he 
is  identified  with,  still  unfolding,  instead  of 
fearing  that  faith  in  him  under  evolution  will 
die  away,  is  there  not  good  reason  for  believing 
that  the  conception  of  him  will  expand  with 
their  expanding;  and  that,  while  forever  more 
and  more  the  Unknowable,  he  will  be  forever 
more  and  more  the  Known? 

The  existence  of  such  a  First  Cause  is  in- 


220     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

volved  in  the  very  nature  of  evolution.  The 
two  primal  constituents,  which  its  expounders 
have  to  assume  the  presence  of  everywhere  it  is 
going  on,  are  energy  and  matter,  or,  if  these 
are  reduced  to  one,  that  one  has  to  be  energy. 
Matter  alone  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  either 
moving  itself  at  first  or  keeping  itself  in  mo- 
tion afterwards.  All  the  forms  of  it  anything 
is  known  about,  from  atom  up  to  world,  are 
pervaded  with  an  immaterial  something  which 
makes  and  maintains  them  what  they  are. 
Nothing  can  be  thought  of  as  behind  or  be- 
fore or  within  such  energy  to  produce  it,  or 
as  being  in  any  way  its  cause.  Matter  may 
store  it  up  as  in  dynamite  or  in  a  combustible 
body,  but  their  manifestations  of  it  are  only 
the  setting  of  it  free.  Even  when  a  living 
being  puts  it  forth,  lifts  his  arm,  or  exercises 
a  volition,  he  does  not  create  it,  is  not  a  cause, 
as  Mr.  Martineau  in  his  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject seems  to  think,  but  is  only  an  agent,  using 
what  has  been  gathered  by  him  out  of  his  food. 
Scientifically  there  are  and  can  be  no  such 
things  as  "secondary  causes,"  nothing  but  this 
one  original,  all-pervading  First  Cause.  And 
not  in  some  far-off  beginning  of  things,  reached 
only  by  an  intricate  process  of  logic,  but  where- 
ever  now  we  see  anything  being  done,  wher- 
ever  any   stage   of  evolution,   there  we  are   in 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE     281 

the    direct    presence    of    the    universe's    First 
Cause. 

"They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out, 
When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings, 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 

And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings." 

It  is  this  that  Herbert  Spencer  means  by  his 
phrase,  "that  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  out 
of  which  all  things  proceed,"  only  the  words 
ought  to  be  "out  of  which  and  in  and  through 
which  all  things  proceed."  It  is  what  those  old 
heathen  poets  whom  Paul  quotes,  expressed 
with  wonderful  accuracy, — Pagan  gems  which 
shine  even  in  their  Christian  setting,  when  they 
said,  "In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being" ; — is  what  Paul  himself  rose  to  in  his 
words,  "For  of  him  and  through  him  and  to 
him  are  all  things" ;  and  it  is  what  poetry  in  all 
ages, — often  supposed  to  be  the  antagonist  of 
science,  but  really  the  rosy  morning  of  its  sun- 
lit day, — has  been  the  herald  of,  singing  as  it 
did  in  Faber, — 

"God  is  never  so  far  as  even  to  be  near: 
He  is  within;  our  spirit  is  the  home  he  holds  dear: 
To  think  of  him  as  at  our  side  is  almost  as  untrue, 
As   to   remove   his   throne   beyond   those   skies   of 

starry  blue; 
We  walk  the  earth  ourselves  his  sanctuary." 


n%      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Such  a  First  Cause,  so  far  as  evolution  neces- 
sitates its  recognition,  may  seem  to  be  only  un- 
conscious force,  only  a  Deity  as  unsatisfactory 
to  the  heart  and  to  the  spiritual  nature  as 
matter  itself  is.  But  force  is  only  one  of  its 
forms,  only  that  which  shows  itself  in  physical 
motion  its  lowest  form.  It  is  something  which 
itself  evolves, — that  is  recognized  in  the  very 
definition  of  evolution,  a  process  in  which  the 
retained  motion  undergoes,  along  with  matter, 
a  parallel  transformation  from  homogeneity 
to  heterogeneity.  It  shows  itself  step  by  step 
in  intelligent  motion,  puts  things  together  with 
a  purpose,  elaborates  the  crystal,  rises  up  into 
life;  that  is  what  life  is,  evolved  force,  not 
merely  the  adjustment  of  inward  to  outward 
conditions,  but  the  cause  which  adjusts  them; 
and  then  rises  up  into  consciousness,  mind, 
heart,  soul,  duty,  religion, — all  flowing  from  it 
and  retaining  it  as  their  substance,  just  as  much 
as  stars,  earth,  body,  species  and  all  the 
wonders  of  physical  evolution  do  their  prim- 
itive matter.  And  to  get  our  conception  of  all 
that  it  really  is  as  First  Cause,  it  is  to  these 
higher  manifestations  rather  than  to  its  lower 
ones  that  surely  in  all  scientific  fairness  we 
ought  to  look,  just  as  to  know  the  real  nature 
of  a  tree  we  do  not  look  at  its  roots  alone,  but 
at  its   fruit,   and  not  at  its   green  and  imper- 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    223 

feet  fruit  but  at  that  which  is  ripe  and  per- 
fect. 

There  is  one  other  difficulty  which  needs  to 
be  considered.  Giving  up  the  idea  of  any  ab- 
solute beginning  to  things  as  necessitating  the 
recognition  of  a  First  Cause,  and  accepting  the 
present  universe  as  only  one  of  an  infinite 
series  whose  First  Cause  is  logical  rather  than 
chronological,  it  may  be  asked  what  then  be- 
comes of  evolution  otherwise  than  as  operating 
within  each  term  of  the  series?  How  is  it 
possible  as  a  progressive  change  from  one  of 
them  to  the  other  without  its  leading  back  to  a 
primitive  one,  beyond  which  there  can  be  no 
evolution,  just  as  certainly  as  following  back 
the  changes  of  the  present  one  alone  was  found 
to  do?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  there  is  no 
progress  from  one  to  the  other,  if  it  is  only  an 
infinite  series  of  evolutions  which  in  the  end 
evolve  nothing  but  each  other,  a  First  Cause 
which  causes  nothing  in  its  last  term  more  than 
was  in  its  first,  what  is  a  belief  in  it  but  a 
giving  up  of  any  real,  any  eternal  evolution, 
and  how  is  it  any  more  satisfactory  to  the 
mind  than  the  old  doctrine  of  an  infinite  series 
of  changes  which  evolved  nothing  at  all? 

The  difficulty  arises  from  taking  into  the 
conception  of  the  series  only  one  kind  of 
infinity,  that  of  time,  and  not  those  of  space 


224      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

and  degree.  To  believe  in  an  evolution  that 
is  without  any  absolute  beginning,  one  that  is 
able  to  be  progress  from  universe  to  universe 
without  either  a  first  term  or  a  last  one,  we 
must  believe  in  a  universe  that  is  infinite  in 
extent  and  infinite  in  its  degrees  of  perfection, 
a  universe,  some  part  of  which  at  least,  has  been 
forever  in  the  past  changing  into  something 
finer  and  better,  and  all  parts  of  which,  in  the 
future,  are  to  go  on  forever  doing  the  same. 

And  who  shall  say  this  is  not  a  possible  con- 
ception? Who  shall  say  this  material  universe 
is  the  only  one  which  in  the  eternal  years  has 
ever  been  or  will  ever  be?  Who  shall  say  that 
the  endless  variety  from  nebula  up  to  Milky 
Way,  and  from  amoeba  up  to  man,  which  we 
know  to  exist  in  this  universe  which  stretches 
through  space,  may  not,  also,  be  the  law  of 
that  series  of  universes  which  stretches  through 
time,  giving  evolution  a  field  in  which  forever 
to  evolve ;  and  out  of  the  very  heart  of  the 
necessity  which  it  puts  us  under  of  believing 
in  religion's  foundation,  an  infinite  First  Cause, 
unfolding  also  the  necessity  of  our  joining  with 
it  religion's  crowning  truth  an  infinite  and  im- 
mortal effect,  making  possible,  also,  an  obedi- 
ence forever  of  religion's  injunction  "Be  ye 
perfect  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect." 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    225 

Aiming  along  this  new  path  opened  in  our 
day  to  learn  whether  nature  would  repeat  the 
answer  that,  questioned  in  other  ways,  she  gave 
of  old,  I  have  tried  in  its  setting  forth  to  avoid, 
as  much  as  possible,  all  merely  technical  terms 
and  all  those  subtle  problems  about  the  absolute 
and  unknowable  which  belong  to  the  realm  of 
metaphysics,  a  realm  in  which  I  confess  myself 
an  utter  ignoramus,  and  to  use  only  common 
language  and  those  principles  which  belong 
fairly  to  the  realm  of  physics  and  of  natural 
evolution.  I  know  very  well  how  narrow  is  the 
path  and  how  liable  the  student  is  to  mistakes 
when  even  in  the  realm  of  physics  he  comes  to 
that  border-land  where  the  finite,  either  of  space 
or  time,  reaches  out  into  the  infinite;  know 
that  what  is  law  and  truth  and  solid  ground  in 
the  one  may  be  disorder  and  falsehood  and  utter 
nothingness  in  the  other;  know  that  even  in 
mathematics  the  exact  truths  with  regard  to 
finite  lines  and  angles  become  the  inexactness 
of  those  which  are  stretched  out  to  infinity. 
But  this  is  as  true  of  the  arguments  against  a 
First  Cause  as  of  those  in  its  defense;  and 
though  it  be  regarded  as  only  a  speculation,  it 
is  a  speculation  which  has  the  whole  known 
universe  as  its  basis ;  one  that  surpasses  in 
grandeur  all  other  thoughts,  and  that  is  reaf- 
firmed   by     what     comes    direct    through    the 


226     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

spirit's  vision.     Evolution   and  dissolution  are 
but  the  systole  and  diastole  of  nature's  great 
heart ;  life  and  death  but  the  summer  and  winter 
of  time's  vaster  year ;  all  the  myriad  worlds  the 
keenest  telescope  takes  in,  but  one  pole  of  the 
world's  mightier  globe;  and  all  the  long  geo- 
logic ages  and  all  the  uncounted  eons  since  the 
nebulous  dust  out  of  which  our  present  universe 
came,   but   a  part-way   swing   of  that  matter 
pendulum    which    ticks    off    eternity's    seconds. 
And  it  is  of  such  a  universe,  such  a  system  of 
nature,  that  it  gives  us  the  cause,  not  the  cause 
which  merely  as  an  outside  hand  wound  it  up 
in  some  far-off  beginning,  or  repeated  its  wind- 
ings on  some  special  subsequent  occasions,  and 
then  left  it  to  run  of  itself,  but  one  which  is 
its  mainspring  and  in  all  its  movements  then, 
now  and  evermore.     To  evolve  is  the  necessity 
of  his  very  being,  as  it  is  of  the  sun  to  shine 
and   of  the   plant  to   grow.     There  never  was 
and  never  will  be  a  time  in  which  he  is  to  be 
thought  of  as  an  idle,  or  a  sleeping,  or  a  self- 
sufficient  God;  never  was  and  never  will  be  a 
time  in  which  anything  evolved  will  be  separate 
from  his  pervading  might.      Not  that  he  is  the 
all  himself;  the  doctrine  is  no  pantheism;  but, 
to  use  the  exact  Bible  phrase,  that  he  is  the  "all 
in    all";    is  the    central    sun    that    is    forever 
shining  and  yet  whose  beams  are  never  the  same 


EVOLUTION  AND  A  FIRST  CAUSE    227 

as  himself.  Worlds,  universes,  alike  material 
and  spiritual;  there  is  no  difference  between 
them  except  of  species  and  degree ;  they  are  the 
ether  waves  which  go  pulsing  out  evermore 
from  his  central  warmth ;  evolution,  that  in  the 
last  analysis  is  the  shining  into  finite  forms  of 
the  Infinite  Light.  So  believing,  naturalism, 
more  truly  than  any  supernaturalism,  can 
sing,— 

"Thou  art,  O  God,  the  life  and  light 
Of  all  this  wondrous  world  we  see; 
Its  glow  by  day,  its  smile  by  night, 

Are  but  reflections  caught  from  Thee; 
Where'er  we  turn  thy  glories  shine 
And  all  things  fair  are  Thee  and  Thine." 

And  knowing  its  diviner  meaning  religion  can 
say  of  nature  as  earnestly  as  ever  science  has, — 

"So  welcome  wre  from  every  source 
The  tokens  of  his  primal  force, — 
Older  than  heaven  itself,  yet  new 
As  the  young  heart  it  reaches  to; 
Beneath  whose  steady  impulse  rolls 
The  tidal  wave  of  human  souls, 
Guide,  comforter  and  Inward  Word, 
The  eternal  spirit  of  the  Lord." 


XII 
WHAT    BECOMES    OF    THE    FATHER- 
HOOD OF  GOD  UNDER  EVOLUTION? 

Of  all  the  various  names  which  have  been 
applied  to  the  Deity,  setting  forth  one  and  an- 
other of  his  attributes,  the  most  distinctive  and 
precious  is  that  of  Father,  our  heavenly 
Father.  It  is  the  high  water  mark  of  the  old 
type  of  religion,  the  religion  of  sentiment  and 
emotion  as  distinguished  from  the  religion  of 
science  and  law,  is  the  measure  of  the  immense 
progress  which  had  been  made  from  the  time 
when  even  among  the  most  advanced  races  on 
earth  his  highest  s}unbol  was  a  stick  or  a  stone ; 
and  around  it  have  been  gathered  age  after 
age,  all  the  great  hopes,  beliefs,  affections  and 
venerations  of  our  larger  Christian  faith. 

But  how  far  can  this  conception  of  him  be 
retained  under  the  new  scientific  light  of  our 
time, — how  far,  especially,  can  it  be  made  con- 
sistent with  the  great  evolutionary  doctrines  of 
man's  descent  from  the  brute  creation  and  of 
the  Deity  as  "that  Infinite  and  Eternal 
22$ 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      229 

Energy"  out  of  which  by  natural  force  and 
law,  all  things,  alike  the  evil  and  the  good,  are 
thought  inevitably  to  proceed?  A  lady  of  my 
acquaintance  was  present  at  an  Orthodox 
church  awhile  ago  where  the  minister  was 
preaching  on  the  absurdities  of  this  new  science 
with  regard  to  the  origin  of  man.  "An  evo- 
lutionist," said  he,  "looks  up  into  the  face  of  a 
baboon  or  a  monkey  and  proclaims  'Thou  art 
my  father;'  but  we  Christians  look  up  into  the 
face  of  the  all-loving  and  all-perfect  God,  and 
say  'Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven !'  " 

Deeper  down,  however,  than  this  merely 
superficial  difficulty,  is  that  awful  shadow  of 
ferocity,  cruelty,  blight  and  wrong  which  over- 
lies so  large  a  part  of  the  divine  realm  here  on 
earth, — the  organic  world's  fierce  struggle  for 
existence,  its  overpowering  of  the  weak  and 
sick  by  the  well  and  strong,  and  its  necessity 
of  their  eating  each  other  up  as  the  only  way 
of  their  getting  food;  the  awful  convulsions 
and  severities  of  the  inorganic  world,  the  earth- 
quake, the  tornado,  the  drouth,  the  flood,  the 
frost,  destroying  myriads  of  living  things  with- 
out even  their  use  as  food;  and  the  vice  and 
crime  and  tyranny  and  inequality  and  poverty 
and  suffering  which  prevail  worst  of  all  among 
his  human  beings.  Under  the  old  doctrines  of 
the  Deity  as  a  Being  outside  of  nature,  and  of 


230      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Adam's  Fall  as  having  dragged  the  world  down, 
it  was  possible  to   explain  such  things  as  the 
result  of  man's  disobedience,  and  as  occurring 
without    the    immediate    action    of    divine    will, 
thus  relieving  him  to  some  extent,  at  least,  of 
their    responsibility.      But    under    the    modern 
scientific    conception   of   God   as   immanent   in 
nature    and    as    the    energy    out    of   which    all 
things  immediately  proceed,  there  is  no  possi- 
bility   of    such    an    exculpatory    explanation. 
Science   cannot  have  him  in  the   sunshine  and 
leave  him  out  of  the  storm,  near  in  the  flower 
and    far    in    the    frost.     The    animal    world's 
struggle  for  existence  and  eating  each  other  up 
as  food  are  shown  by  it  to  have  been  instituted 
eons  before  there  was   any  man  to  sin.     And 
with  God  the   energy  out   of  which  all  things 
proceed,  it  must  be  his  own  arm  directly  which 
starts  the  earthquakes,  and  his  own  breath  im- 
mediately which  blows  the  whirlwind.     "That," 
said  an  eminent  scientist  to  me  once  with  whom 
I  was  talking  on  the  subject,  taking  down  a 
hawk's  claws  from  his  cabinet, — "that  is  what 
I    find    in    the    God    of    nature,    and    when    I 
want    this" — opening    his    Bible    and    pointing 
to    the    words,    "Like    as    a   father   pitieth   his 
children,   so   the  Lord  pitieth  them   that   fear 
him," — "when  I  want  this  kind  of  clause,  I  have 
to  go  for  it  to  the  pages  of  Scripture."     It  is 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      231 

a  difficulty  which  is  not  a  mere  theoretical  one 
of  the  scholar's  study,  but  one  which  forces 
itself  on  everybody's  attention,  one  which 
clutches  at  our  nerves  and  heart-strings  as  well 
as  at  our  minds  and  philosophies.  There  are 
multitudes  who  accept  gladly  the  scientific 
doctrine  of  the  Deity  as  the  great  indwelling 
spirit  of  the  universe,  and  who  can  see  that  it 
adds  infinitely  to  his  grandeur  as  an  object  of 
reverence,  but  also  feel  that  in  doing  so  they, 
to  be  consistent,  must  give  up  the  genial  home 
warmth  and  sweet  paternal  relation  which  have 
been  so  long  associated  with  his  endeared  gospel 
name ;  and  perhaps  there  is  no  truth  which  the 
words  of  this  earth  can  express  that  to  think- 
ing, feeling  men  and  women  would  be  so  com- 
prehensive, so  precious,  so  welcome,  as  the  one 
which  would  enable  them,  in  the  midst  of  the 
natural  world  and  in  the  full  blaze  of  evolution, 
to  look  up  and  say  with  the  old  faith  and  the 
old  love,  "Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven." 

I  am  free  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  it 
possible  to  make  the  two  conceptions  of  him 
parallel  in  all  respects,  any  more  than  it  is  the 
two  of  anything,  one  of  which  comes  through 
the  mind  and  the  other  through  the  heart;  do 
not  think  it  is  desirable  to  do  so,  for  in  that 
case  neither  of  them  would  add  anything  to 
what  the  other  gave.      But  I  do  think  the  scien- 


838      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

tific  view  of  him  includes  in  its  drier  light  some, 
at  least,  of  the  paternal  attributes  which  are  so 
precious  in  the  religious  view.  And  it  is  on 
this  most  important  question,  how  far  the  God 
of  nature  and  of  evolution  can  be  spoken  of  as 
Our  Father,  that  I  shall  dwell  in  this  lecture. 

Look  first  at  the  matter  subjectively.  How 
did  religion  get  the  name  and  conception  of  the 
Deity  as  Father,  our  heavenly  Father?  It  is 
commonly  thought  that  it  was  supernaturally 
revealed  through  the  lips  of  Jesus,  and  that  it 
was  the  distinctive  gift  of  Christianity  to  the 
world.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  older  than 
Christianity,  older  than  any  of  the  world's 
existing  faiths.  It  originated  among  our  old 
Aryan  ancestors  thousands  of  years  before 
the  Christian  era,  in  what  to  them  was  pre- 
eminently a  natural  religion.  Among  their 
many  deities  was  one  they  called  Dyaus  Pitar, 
literally  the  Sky  Father;  and  when  the  original 
Aryan  religion  died  out,  the  name  was  a  part 
of  the  precious  goods  it  distributed  among  the 
nations  that  were  its  descendants,  becoming 
with  the  Greeks  Zeus  Pater,  with  the  Romans 
Jupiter,  meaning  the  same  thing,  with  the  Scan- 
dinavians Alfadir, — All-Father — and  with  the 
early  Christians,  "Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven."  The  name,  therefore,  is  strictly  a 
natural  evolution,  not  something  which  Chris- 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      233 

tianity  gave  to  nature,  but  which  nature  gave  to 
Christianity;  and  though  under  Christian  nur- 
ture its  contents  of  tenderness,  care  and  spirit- 
uality have  been  immeasurably  enlarged,  it  is 
only  fair  to  argue  that  to  the  primitive  Aryan 
mind  it  must  have  expressed,  as  the  root  out  of 
which  its  after  growth  came,  a  real  aspect  of 
nature,  otherwise  it  is  a  name  which  would  never 
have  been  suggested. 

The  Dyaus  Pitar,  to  be  sure,  has  not  been 
the  world's  only  nature  god.  The  Aryans 
themselves  had  other  deities  with  other  names 
expressing  other  and  sometimes  the  darker  and 
more  terrible  aspects  of  earth,  air  and  sky,  as 
Rudra  the  god  of  storms,  Agni,  the  god  of  fire. 

Polytheistic  also  have  been  all  the  religions 
which  came  from  Aryan  stock,  many  of  them 
wTith  divinities  whose  attributes  were  the  very 
opposite  of  what  is  fatherly,  as  Ahriman,  Siva, 
Mars  and  Thor;  and  even  in  our  Christian 
faith  the  conception  of  a  Father  God  has  not 
always  been  so  all-embracing  but  that  it  has 
had  to  be  supplemented  with  such  names  as 
Jehovah,  Lord,  King,  Almighty,  Triune  and 
the  like,  taking  in  what  were  thought  to  be 
other  of  his  attributes,  and  with  such  a  being 
as  Satan  to  include  his  relation  to  the  kingdom 
of  evil.  But  this  only  strengthens  the  argu- 
ment for  the  reality  in  nature  of  what  under- 


234      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

lies  the  word  Father,  for  it  shows  the  name  has 
been  put  to  what  in  evolution  is  the  supreme 
test  of  a  thing,  the  struggle  for  existence. 
And  it  has  survived,  has  killed  out  or  absorbed 
all  the  others  because  it  has  proved  itself  to  be 
the  fittest,  has  expressed  better  than  any  of  the 
others  what  under  the  world's  increasing  in- 
telligence has  been  found  to  be  not  only  the 
needs  of  the  human  heart,  but  man's  larger 
mental  conception  of  what  exists  really  at 
nature's  heart.  Even  amid  the  crudest  beliefs 
with  regard  to  immediate  evil  divinities,  faith 
in  a  supreme  one  who  has  the  paternal  char- 
acteristics has  often  curiously  cropped  out. 
The  story  is  told  of  a  farmer  in  England  some- 
what unfortunate  in  his  crops  and  in  his  family 
affairs,  whose  minister  sought  to  comfort  him 
by  saying  they  were  not  accidents  but  the  dis- 
pensations of  an  All-Wise  Providence,  to  which 
he  ought  cheerfully  to  submit.  "Oh,  yes,"  was 
the  answer,  "I  well  know  it  was  Providence  that 
spoiled  my  crops  and  killed  my  children; 
it  is  Providence  does  this,  and  Providence  does 
that, — nothing  but  Providence  picking  on  me 
all  the  time ;  I  hate  Providence ;  but  I  am  thank- 
ful there  is  One  above  who  will  at  last  set  things 
right."  And  in  all  the  Ayran  mythologies 
along  with  their  recognition  of  agencies  in 
nature   that   for   the   time   being  were   setting 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      235 

things  wrong,  there  has  always  been,  dim  or 
clear,  this  trust  in  one  above  them  who  in  the 
end  would  set  things  right, — above  Ahriman 
Ormazd,  above  the  tricksy  pantheons  of  Olym- 
pus and  Asgard  a  paternal  Being  whom  alike 
gods  and  men  were  bound  to  obey,  and  above 
Sinai  and  Satan  a  heavenly  Father  who  at  last 
would  put  all  enemies  under  his  feet  and  be  the 
world's  all  in  all. 

But  we  are  reminded  that  man's  conception 
of  what  Deity  is  did  not  begin  its  evolution 
with  the  old  Aryan  faith,  or  with  divinities  any- 
where which  had  even  the  faintest  lineaments 
of  a  loving,  paternal  face.  Spencer,  Frazer, 
Tylor,  Robertson  Smith  and  others  have  traced 
back  religion  through  the  worship  of  idols, 
animals,  the  heavenly  bodies,  sticks  and  stones, 
to  that  of  the  ghosts  of  dead  ancestors  ;  and  now 
Mr.  Grant  Allen  comes  along  and  after  review- 
ing and  re-proving  all  these  steps,  goes  back 
beyond  them,  back  even  of  the  ancestral  ghost, 
and  shows  that  the  first  step  was  the  worship 
of  the  mere  dead  body  itself,  apart  from  even 
the  crudest  idea  of  spirit, — argues  that  even 
the  Christian  conception  of  a  heavenly  Father 
and  the  Hebrew  one  of  Jehovah  originated 
in  the  homage  paid  to  a  dead  savage  chief- 
tain. 

It  is  a  view  on  the  face  of  it  which  is  the  most 


236      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

startlingly  atheistic  of  anything  scepticism  has 
yet  set  forth.  The  conception  of  Deity  is 
naturally  thought  of  as  meaning  the  same  thing 
as  Deity  himself,  and  the  evolution  of  the  con- 
ception from  the  sight  of  a  dead  body  or  from 
the  shadow  of  a  live  one  is  thought  of  as  cover- 
ing the  evolution  from  such  a  source  of  every- 
thing which  is  divine;  is  tracing  the  broad 
highway  of  Christianity  in  which  God  moves  as 
a  Father,  out  beyond  civilization  and  be3^ond 
heathendom  into  a  wilderness  where  it  not  only 
narrows  to  a  squirrel  path  and  runs  up  a  tree, 
but  to  where  it  comes  down  even  from  the  tree 
and  disappears  as  a  hole  in  the  ground.  "Who 
is  your  God?"  asked  a  traveler  in  Arabia  of  a 
Mesaleckh  nomad.  "It  was  Fadee,"  answered 
the  man,  naming  a  powerful  provincial  chieftain 
recently  deceased,  "but  since  his  death  I  do  not 
really  know  who,  at  the  present  moment,  my 
God  is."  That  is  the  first  impression  made  by 
these  recent  investigations,  that  having  traced 
him  to  the  dead  body  of  a  savage  chieftain 
buried  in  the  ground,  evolution  does  not  really 
know  who  at  the  present  moment  its  God  is. 
Most  of  the  criticisms  on  "the  ghost  theory," 
as  it  is  called,  have  been  based  on  such  a  confus- 
ing together  of  the  reality  and  the  idea.  Even 
our  friend,  Rev.  Mr.  St.  John,  in  his  notice  of 
Grant   Allen's   book   contributed   to   The  New 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      237 

World  ridicules  his  work  as  "a  sketch  of  the 
evolution  of  God"  and  its  author,  because  of  it, 
as  having  "clearly  abdicated  his  throne  of  in- 
tellectual leadership." 

Mr.  Allen  is,  perhaps,  careless  in  some  of  his 
expressions.  But  the  very  title  of  his  book, 
"The  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God,"  and  his 
explicit  statements  that  his  purpose  is  not  "any 
kind  of  inquiry  into  the  objective  validity  of 
any  one  among  the  religious  beliefs,"  that  "the 
question  whether  there  may  be  a  God  or  gods 
does  not  here  concern  us,"  and  that  he  does  not 
attempt  to  "cast  doubt  upon  the  truth  of  the 
evolved  concepts,"  ought  surely  to  have  pre- 
vented any  such  mistake.  It  would  be  just  as 
fair  to  say  of  a  writer  who,  in  giving  a  history 
of  astronomy,  had  traced  it  back  through  its 
Tycho  Braeic  and  Ptolemaic  theories  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  sky  as  a  fixed  hollow  sphere  a 
few  miles  above  us,  that  he  is  ignoring  the 
real  heavens;  or  of  one  who  in  describing  the 
development  of  electrical  science  should  begin 
with  the  attention  drawn  to  it  by  the  dancing 
of  pith  balls  and  the  twitching  of  a  frog's  leg, 
that  he  made  these  the  source  of  electricity 
itself,  as  to  charge  that  a  scientist  who  finds 
the  starting  point  of  a  man's  idea  of  God  in  a 
dead  ancestor,  is  thereby  ignoring  the  infinite 
reality   and  making  the  heavenly  Father  him- 


238     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

self  grow  up  from  the  lifeless  body  of  an  earthly 
parent. 

The  fact  is,  Mr.  Allen's  book,  though  open  in 
some  places  as  he  himself  says  to  further 
question,  is  a  reverent  and  exceedingly  inter- 
esting summing  up  of  the  discoveries  made  in 
recent  years  of  how  religion  reached  its  present 
advanced  stage.  It  is  as  full  of  curious  facts 
about  theological  ideas  as  Darwin's  "Origin  of 
Species"  is  about  animals  and  plants.  Many 
things  in  our  present  ecclesiastical  customs 
otherwise  unaccountable  and  hurtful,  are  ex- 
plained by  it  as  beautifully  and  satisfactorily 
as  the  fossils  of  the  earth's  strata  and  the 
rudimentary  organs  of  the  human  body  are 
by  geological  and  organic  evolution ;  and 
rightly  viewed  the  process  it  describes  is  no 
more  degrading  to  religion  than  the  tracing  of 
man  up  from  his  monster  animal  ancestors  is 
to  our  present  human  nature. 

Then  apart  from  any  special  theory,  the  evo- 
lution of  a  natural  religion  from  such  un- 
promising beginnings  is  the  very  thing  we 
ought  to  expect,  so  in  harmony  is  it  with  the 
evolution  of  all  other  natural  things;  and  in- 
stead of  doing  away  with  the  need  of  recogniz- 
ing a  divine  reality  behind  it,  is  what  implies 
in  the  strongest  possible  way  his  actual  exist- 
ence.    For  according  to  the  fundamental  prin- 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      239 

ciples  of  evolution  there  must  have  been  some 
cause  for  this  long  and  wonderful  growth  of 
its  inner  God-idea,  some,  quickening  at  first  by 
a  suitable  environment  of  its  humble  germ,  and 
some  corresponding  nutriment  afterwards  for 
its   development,   just    as    in   the   evolution    of 
astronomy  there  has  been  the  actual  sky,  and 
of  electrical  science  electricity  itself.     What  in 
religion  could  this  cause,  this  environment,  this 
nutriment    have    been?     What    but    a    divine 
spiritual  reality?     The  relation  of  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's dreams  and  shadows  and  Mr.  Allen's  dead 
bodies  and  sticks  and  stones  to  the  actual  all- 
embracing  Deity  has  possibly  been  something 
like   that    of    foreign   bodies,   sometimes   mere 
specks  of  dirt  or  wisps  of  straw,  to  the  solution 
out  of  which  crystals  are  formed.     The  foreign 
substances    do    not    of    themselves    make    the 
crystals   and  are  no   real  part  of  them  when 
made, — rather    often    mar    their    appearance. 
They  simply  afford  the  requisite  starting  points 
and  stimulants  for  the  formation  of  them  out 
of  and  by  the  solution  itself,— to  the  chemist's 
eye  would  imply  its  existence  by  the  use  made 
of  them,  even  though  it  could  not  otherwise  be 
seen.     And  though  the  crystals  at  first  may  be 
imperfectly  shaped,  owing  to  the  crowding  of 
them  together  and  the  smallness  of  the  vessel 
in  which  the  solution  is  held,  yet,  as  the  vessel 


240      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

is  enlarged  and  scope  afforded  for  their  full 
development,  they  take  more  and  more  their 
own  special  shape  independent  alike  of  vessel 
and  of  nuclei  and  at  last  show  forth,  next  to 
animals  and  plants,  the  most  beautiful  and 
wonderful  objects  of  nature.  So  with  the 
crude  material  bodies  in  the  worship  of  which 
religion  begins.  They  are  no  part  of  the  thing 
itself,  no  indication  of  what  its  real  divinity 
is.  They  are  only  the  specks  and  straws  for 
the  mind's  surrounding  spiritual  medium  to 
start  from  in  forming  its  conceptions  of  the 
Divine.  It  is  the  surrounding  spirit  which 
makes  the  conceptions, — narrow  and  crude  at 
first  and  partaking,  as  might  be  expected  of 
the  impurities  and  limitations  of  the  minds  in 
which  they  are  formed  and  of  the  objects  from 
which  they  began,  but  gradually  getting  away 
from  these,  and  crystallizing  at  last,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  tendency  of  spirit's  own  intrinsic 
nature,  into  that  idea  of  God  as  a  heavenly 
Father  which  is  so  precious  a  part  of  our 
Christian  faith,  the  whole  just  as  truly  a  cul- 
mination in  the  process  of  natural  evolution  as 
anything  there  is  in  the  outward  world,  and  not 
by  any  means  less  wonderful  or  less  reliable 
because  of  its  unpromising  start  and  of  the 
strange  forms  it  has  taken  along  its  way. 

Turning  now  from  this  subjective  conception 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      241 

of  God  as   a  Father  reached  by  evolution,  to 
what  evolution  has  to  say  about  his  being  such 
to  human  beings  objectively  and  in  his  actual 
relations  to  them  as  the  presiding  spirit  of  the 
universe,  the  first  point  for  comparison  is  that 
of  progenitorship,  being  the  source  from  which 
they  have  naturally  come.     The  relation  of  an 
earthly    father   to    his    children   begins    in   his 
being  their  originator ;  and  this  means  not  that 
he  has  created  them  artificially,  or  that  he  has 
spoken  them  into  existence  supernaturally,  or 
that  he  has  adopted  them  by  a  legal  process 
from  some  other  family;  but  that  he  and  the 
mother  have  brought  them  forth  naturally  from 
their  own  bodies  and  endowed  them,  in  the  very 
act  of  doing  so,  with  a  part  of  their  own  life. 
What  is  this,  however,  but  the  very  thing  evo- 
lution teaches  was  the  origin  of  man?     He  is 
not  an  artificial  product,  not  something  which 
was  created  all  at  once  by  a  fiat  of  the  divine 
will,  not  a  creature  who  was  brought  here  from 
another  world,  but  a  being  who  by  a  strictly 
normal  process  was  evolved  out  of  nature,  that 
nature,  including  alike  matter  and  its  infinite 
and   eternal  energy,   which   to   science   is   only 
another    name    for    God.     What    though    man 
went  through  a  myriad  animal   forms   on  the 
way?     That  is  what  we  know  now  every  child 
does  embryonically  in  coming  from  his  human 


£42     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

parents, — starts  on  the  lowest  animal  plane  as 
a  mere  cell,  and  unfolds  partly  before  birth  and 
partly  afterwards,  step  by  step  through  every 
stage  that  Darwin  has  shown  that  our  race  has 
passed  through  in  passing  from  moneron  up  to 
man,  some  of  them  so  like  those  of  the  lower 
animals  that  it  is  only  an  expert  anatomist  can 
tell  the  one  from  the  other.  Yet  who  thinks 
that  on  that  account  human  beings  are  any  the 
less  his  parents  ?  It  is  what  we  start  from,  not 
what  we  go  through  along  the  way,  which 
determines  origin.  The  most  bigoted  anti- 
evolutionist  knows  beyond  dispute  that  his 
human  ancestors  a  few  generations  back  were 
savages.  Yet  what  would  he  think  of  a  min- 
ister who  should  get  up  in  the  pulpit  and  say, 
"The  anti-evolutionist  looks  up  into  the  face  of 
a  savage  or  a  barbarian  and  says,  'Thou  art  my 
progenitor,'  but  we  Christians  look  up  to  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal  God  and  exclaim  'O  thou, 
our  Father  which  art  in  heaven.'  "  Yet  how 
could  this  be  a  particle  more  absurd  than  the 
implied  argument  of  the  minister  that  because 
the  evolutionist  recognizes  anthropoids  a  little 
further  back  as  in  his  line  of  ancestors,  he  is 
therefore  cut  off  from  believing"  that  he  has  a 
heavenly  parent?  The  fact  is,  trace  back  man 
as  far  as  we  will  through  the  ages  of  the  past, 
his    paleontological    footmarks    all   start   from 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      243 

Deity.  The  life  with  which  he  began,  though 
undoubtedly  an  evolution,  like  everything  else 
in  the  universe,  from  a  preceding  natural  state, 
must  have  been  not  the  less  an  outcome  of  that 
divine  life  which  was  never  outside  even  of  in- 
organic matter;  and  when  what  hitherto  had 
showed  itself  only  as  force,  shaped  on  earth  its 
first  protoplasmic  cell, — that  out  of  which  all 
others  have  come,  that  which,  according  to 
Weissmann,  still  survives  immortal  amid  all  the 
deaths  of  its  myriad  descendants,  in  that  cell, 
rather  than  ages  after,  when  it  was  born  a  fully 
developed  human  babe,  was  revealed,  so  far 
as  origin  is  concerned,  the  Fatherhood  of 
God. 

Again  human  fatherhood  implies  some  re- 
semblance between  the  child  and  the  parent, 
some  qualities  which  are  common  to  them  both, 
— a  likeness  between  them  which  is  accepted 
everywhere  as  at  least  one  evidence  of  their 
relationship ;  and  though  at  first  the  resem- 
blance may  be  very  incomplete,  though  there 
is  a  wide  difference  between  the  statesman 
managing  the  affairs  of  a  mighty  nation,  and 
his  little  child  at  home  "pleased  with  a  rattle, 
tickled  with  a  straw,"  yet  beneath  this  differ- 
ence, as  we  know,  they  have  the  same  human 
nature,  are  made  of  the  same  substances,  body 
and  soul,  and  have  the  same  spiritual  capacities 


244      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

for  appreciating  the  beautiful,  the  true  and  the 
good. 

Evolution  disclaims  utterly  the  idea  that 
God  is  like  man  in  bodily  form, — in  limbs  and 
features,  shape  and  structure.  But  when  inner 
qualities  are  considered,  those  which  are  intel- 
lectual, moral,  emotional  and  spiritual,  is  the 
difference  otherwise  than  in  degree?  How  do 
we  get  our  knowledge,  so  far  as  science  is  con- 
cerned, of  what  God  is?  Plainly  it  is  by  the 
study  of  the  universe  around  us, — this  that  is 
his  manifestation  and  embodiment,  this  that  has 
proceeded  out  of  his  infinite  and  eternal 
energy.  But  what  is  the  universe  thus  open 
for  our  study?  Not  its  matter  and  force,  suns 
and  stars,  cliffs  and  clods  alone ;  but  with  them 
its  spiritual  parts,  its  men  and  women,  minds 
and  hearts,  virtues  and  intelligences.  And 
taking  these  into  the  account,  regarding  them 
all  as  his  manifestations,  imperfect,  to  be  sure, 
yet  having  some  basis  in  reality,  then  evidently 
there  must  be  a  likeness  between  the  Being  who 
is  thus  manifested  and  the  human  beings  who 
are  at  least  a  part  of  the  objects  through 
whom  and  to  whom  the  manifestation  comes. 
Indeed,  what  is  the  science  itself  that  reads  the 
universe  but  an  evidence  of  such  likeness?  The 
only  way  in  which  we  can  understandingly  read 
anything,    any    book,    any    picture,    any    ex- 


TPIE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      245 

pression  on  a  fellow  creature's  face,  is  by  virtue 
of  something  which  is  common  to  ourselves  and 
to  the  one  who  wrote  the  book,  made  the 
picture,  wore  the  expression.  So  with  the  uni- 
verse. Science  finds  it  put  together  with  won- 
derful intelligence  and  wisdom,  full  of  beautiful 
pictures,  and  richly  stamped  with  expressions, 
in  its  human  objects,  of  love,  benevolence,  sym- 
pathy and  moral  order.  What  do  these  mean 
but  that  there  must  be  something  in  the  power 
that  placed  these  qualities  there  which  is  akin 
to  what  is  in  the  beings  who  find  them  there, 
something  in  the  Father  who  writes  meanings 
in  the  world's  great  letter  which  resembles 
what  is  in  the  child  who  is  able  to  read  the  mean- 
ings of  the  world's  great  letter?  And  if  along 
with  the  diviner  things  we  find  in  the  universe, 
there  are  mingled  some  which  are  brutish,  some 
which  seem  to  have  no  resemblance  to  our 
highest  conception  even  of  human  fatherhood, 
may  it  not  be,  as  explained  by  evolution, 
because  the  universe  as  yet,  with  all  its  age  and 
all  its  grandeur  is  only  at  its  embryo  stage, 
only  on  its  way  through  its  brutish  forms  to 
that  maturity  in  which,  like  the  grown  man,  it 
shall  be  in  all  respects  the  image  of  its  great 
original  ? 

But  above   progenitorship   and   resemblance, 
human  fatherhood  means  love  for  its  offspring, 


246     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

a  love  which  shows  itself  in  kindly  intercourse 
with  them  as  social  beings,  in  provision  for  their 
wants,  and  in  their  protection  from  dangers 
and  foes,  a  love  which  does  not  depend  for  its 
exercise  on  their  greatness  or  worth  or  service, 
but  on  their  being  his  children,  and  which  finds 
its  reward  in  the  happiness,  not  of  itself,  but 
of  them.  Does  the  father  build  a  house,  it  is 
not  more  for  himself  and  his  wife  than  for  his 
children.  Does  he  go  forth  to  toil  hard  all 
day  in  the  shop,  the  counting-room  and  the 
field?  It  is  that  he  may  earn  bread  not  for 
his  own  mouth  merely,  but  for  his  little  ones 
at  home.  Is  a  fortune  won?  Ah,  he  says, 
now  I  shall  have  something  to  leave  my  boy  and 
girl.  Does  danger  threaten,  sickness  assail, 
do  foes  attack?  It  is  their  cause  he  makes  his 
own,  and  help  to  them  in  some  way  that  he  seeks 
to  give.  And  does  he  want  companionship  and 
social  delights?  There  is  no  wisdom  of  phi- 
losophers, or  beauty  of  poets  or  graciousness 
of  kings  that  he  finds  so  sweet  as  the  cooing 
of  his  little  baby  tossed  in  his  arms,  who  can- 
not speak  a  word.  What  is  there  in  the  God 
of  evolution  and  science  which  corresponds 
with  these  qualities  of  paternity? 

Well,  no  audible  speech,  no  coming  home  at 
night  and  taking  his  creatures  bodily  on  his 
knees,  no   rushing  out  visibly  to   rescue  them 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      247 

from  the  earthquake  and  tornado,  robber  and 
tyrant.  But  there  are  other  ways  in  which  a 
love  not  unlike  that  of  an  earthly  parent  for 
his  children  is  really  shown.  What  is  this 
whole  earth  but  a  mighty  house  he  has  built  in 
which  for  them  to  dwell?  What  are  the  coal, 
and  oil  and  metals  and  sunshine  and  air  stored 
up  in  it  from  cellar  to  ceiling,  but  his  provision 
for  their  wants?  What  are  its  myriad  laws 
and  forces,  winds  and  tides,  heats  and  colds, 
electricities  and  magnetisms  but  the  hands  with 
which  he  is  toiling  day  and  night  to  promote 
their  welfare?  What  poetry  and  art  and 
science  and  civilization  and  religion  but  the 
fortunes  ever  larger  and  larger  which  he  is  be- 
stowing on  each  new  set  of  his  boys  and  girls? 

To  be  sure,  he  makes  them  work  with  him  to 
obtain  many  of  these  blessings,  and  allows  them 
to  fall  into  dangers,  hardships  and  trials,  and 
to  be  overwhelmed  with  storms,  earthquakes, 
diseases,  injustices  and  tyrannies  without  any 
visible  interferences  to  give  them  help.  But 
in  the  larger  view  such  things  are  only  the 
rougher  outside  of  what  within  are  equally 
blessings,  are  needed  even  more  than  the  easy, 
pleasant  things,  are  to  train  up  their  recipients 
in  the  highest  degree  as  his  children.  Suppose 
that  he  omitted  them  from  his  gifts, — did  as 
some    people    would    have    him    do,    allow    his 


248      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

creatures  to  experience  only  the  smooth,  soft, 
beautiful  things  of  life,  what  would  be  the 
result?  You  occasionally  see  some  parents, 
mothers  especially,  who  have  tried  on  their  chil- 
dren that  very  thing, — have  done  for  them  with 
their  own  hands  all  the  work  of  life,  crammed 
them  with  food,  provided  for  them  every  kind 
of!  amusement,  tolerated  without  punishment 
their  wrong  doings,  and  sheltered  them  from  all 
hardship  and  harm.  And  what  has  been  its 
influence  on  their  characters  and  their  real 
happiness?  Why,  there  is  no  malignity  of 
devils  which  could  have  done  them  such  injury, 
no  incarnations  of  hate  which  could  have  been 
more  successful  in  making  them  sometimes  milk- 
sops, sometimes  knaves  and  villains,  and  always 
the  embodiments  of  downright  selfishness  and 
conceit. 

Fortunately  the  God  of  nature  is  no  such 
parent,  is  not  a  mother,  as  some  would  call  him, 
but  a  father,  one  who  has  the  wise  and  far- 
reaching  love  that  when  they  are  needed 
supplies  his  creatures  with  hardships,  puts  them 
to  public  school  out  in  the  universe,  provides 
them  with  the  raAv  materials  of  happiness,  but 
lets  them  have  the  added  pleasure  of  manu- 
facturing the  materials  into  actual  things, 
allows  them  now  and  then  a  round  of  fisticuffs 
with   the    earthquake,    tornado,   pestilence    and 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      249 

famine,  and  teaches  them  the  value  of  liberty, 
virtue  and  right  by  having  them  of  themselves 
knock  down  tyranny,  vice  and  wrong.  It  is  by 
man's  wrestling'  with  things  which  are  often  re- 
garded as  the  evidences  of  a  lack  in  the  world 
of  any  paternal  care,  that  he  gets  not  only  new 
strength  for  himself,  but  at  their  core  one  of 
a  Father's  strongest  protecting  arms,  and  out 
of  the  nettle  danger,  plucks  not  only  the  flower 
of  safety  but  a  flower  which  has  in  it  the  very 
breath  also  of  Infinite  Love. 

"By  adversity  are  wrought 
The  greatest  works  of  admiration, 
And  all  the  fair  examples  of  renown 
Out  of  distress  and  misery  are  grown. 
The  gods  in  bounty  work  up  storms  about  us 
That  give  mankind  occasion  to  exert 
Their  hidden  strength,  and  bring  in  practice 
Virtues  which  shun  the  day  and  lie  concealed 
In  the  smooth  seasons  and  the  calm  of  life." 

Yet  while  recognizing  the  element  of  father- 
hood even  in  the  most  terrible  things  of  nature 
to  be  obtained  there  by  those  who  overcome 
them,  it  would  be  wrong  to  suppose  his  pater- 
nity is  only  in  what  is  terrible  and  is  only  to  In- 
obtained  by  his  strong  and  victorious  children. 
One  of  the  most  touching  incidents  in  Homer's 
Iliad  is  where  Hector,  the  Trojan  leader,  just 


250      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

before  going  out  to  battle  with  the  Greeks, 
comes  home  to  take  leave  of  his  child,  the 
young  Astyanax,  and,  finding  the  little  one 
frightened  at  his  nodding  plume,  takes  off  his 
helmet  and  lays  it  aside  to  let  him  see  only  the 
father's  loving  face.  Nature  is  full  of  scenes 
where  the  eternal  captain  does  the  same, — 
leads  his  adult  sons  to  battle  with  the  warrior's 
nodding  plume,  but  when  he  comes  to  embrace 
his  little  children,  takes  off  his  more  terrible 
accouterments,  and  appears  to  them  as  the 
warm  sunshine  and  the  pleasant  breeze, — 
reveals  to  their  weakness  in  all  its  beauty  that 
Father's  smiling  face  which  to  others  he  hides 
behind  a  frowning  Providence. 

There  is  one  thing  more  implied  in  all  true 
fatherhood,  which  it  will  not  do  to  leave  out  of 
sight,  love  and  care  for  its  offspring,  alike  the 
older  and  the  younger,  not  only  in  the  mass, 
but  also  as  individuals,  not  only  as  so  much 
childhood,  but  as  so  many  children.  When  a 
king  loves  his  subjects,  or  a  general  his  army, 
or  a  philanthropist  his  race,  it  necessarily  has 
to  be  as  a  complex  whole,  with  only  the  merest 
fraction  of  them  known  to  him  by  name,  and 
with  thousands  and  millions  he  has  never  per- 
sonally met,  or  taken  any  individual  interest  in. 
But  the  peculiarity  of  a  father's  relation  to  his 
children  is  that  he  knows  them  one  by  one,  has 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      251 

a  name  for  each,  and  makes  each  the  object  of 
a  distinct  and  individual  affection. 

At  first  it  looks  as  if  nature  was  the  very 
opposite  of  this,  concerned  herself  with  things 
as  a  whole,  but  not  with  their  individual 
parts, — 

"So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems 
So  careless  of  the  single  life." 

But  as  under  the  guidance  of  science  we  ex- 
amine her  tendencies  more  minutely  and  higher 
up,  we  find  that  it  is  preeminently  the  indi- 
vidual she  has  in  view  and  it  is  towards  him  that 
all  her  progress  is  being  made.  The  universe, 
to  start  with,  is  a  homogeneous  mass,  and  the 
first  step  of  all  evolution,  and  one  it  keeps 
repeating  wherever  there  is  homogeneity  after- 
wards, is  its  differentiation  into  a  multitude  of 
distinct  parts, — into  elements,  worlds,  species, 
races,  nations,  classes  and  finally  individual  men 
and  women,  and  the  giving  to  each  of  them  its 
own  distinct  life,  form  and  functions,  and  its 
own  special  food,  protection  and  care.  Na- 
ture's providence  is  all  "special,"  and  special 
beyond  anything  human  fatherhood  is  ever 
capable  of.  Gravity  never  forgets  an  atom  of 
dust  any  more  than  a  Jupiter  or  a  sun.  The 
same  skill  is  used  in  painting  the  spots  on  a 
butterfly's  wings  as  in  filling  the  sky  with  stars 


252     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

and  the  evening  twilight  with  crimson  and 
gold.  The  humming-bird  and  the  dove  have 
been  provided  with  the  means  of  coming  down 
the  ages  through  the  world's  great  struggle 
for  existence  as  safely  as  the  elephant  and  the 
lion.  Limbs  and  senses  and  brain  and  soul  are 
given  as  carefully  to  the  child  which  is  born 
in  a  hovel  as  to  the  one  which  is  born  on  a 
throne.  When  evolution  passes  on  to  its  last 
stage,  that  of  integration  into  human  society, 
it  is  only  to  make  its  wholeness  the  means  of 
yet  further  perfecting  its  parts.  And  though 
in  time  individuals  die  while  the  race  lives  on, 
yet  as  the  final  outcome,  everything  in  evolu- 
tion points  to  the  race  as  what,  with  a  perish- 
ing globe,  is  to  perish,  and  to  the  individual 
souls  that  age  after  age  are  springing  from  it 
and  apparently  dying,  as  the  products  which, 
if  anything,  are  in  other  worlds  to  live  forever, 
the  supreme  objects,  therefore,  of  the  world's 
paternal  care. 

It  is  on  these  grounds  and  in  these  respects, 
the  respects  of  origin,  likeness,  love  and  indi- 
vidual care,  that  I  think  we  may  safely  regard 
the  God  of  nature  and  of  evolution  as  a 
Father.  The  word  may  not  express  all  that 
he  is  known  to  be  in  the  light  of  science,  or  all 
of  the  unknowable  that  he  is  made  to  be  in  the 
darkness    of   metaphysics, — every   father,   even 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD      253 

here  on  earth,  having  a  vast  number  of  other 
relations  and  attributes  besides  the  parental 
ones,  which  go  to  make  up  what  he  is  as  mer- 
chant, mechanic,  citizen,  friend,  neighbor;  but 
it  does  set  forth  one  part  of  what  he  is,  one 
that,  whatever  else  about  him  remains  to  us  un- 
known and  unknowable,  we  want  preeminently 
to  be  certain  about.  As  a  party  of  botanists 
were  exploring  the  hills  of  Scotland  in  the  in- 
terests of  their  science,  they  discovered  one 
morning  a  rare  flower  halfway  down  a  steep 
precipice,  which  they  were  very  anxious  to  se- 
cure. But  the  single  rope  they  had  with  them 
not  being  strong  enough  to  bear  the  weight  of 
a  full-grown  man,  it  was  proposed  to  tie  it 
around  a  little  boy  among  them,  the  son  of  one 
of  their  number,  and  let  him  down  to  where  it 
was.  The  boy  looked  over  the  brow  of  the  cliff 
at  the  fair  flower  nodding  in  the  morninir 
breeze,  and  at  the  awful  abyss  and  jagged 
rocks  far  below  it,  and  for  a  moment  hesitated ; 
then  turning  to  the  smiling  parental  face  that 
bent  over  him,  he  bravely  answered,  "Yes,  I 
will  go,  if  my  father  will  hold  the  rope." 
Why?  Not  because  there  were  not  arms  there 
as  strong  as  the  father's  arm;  not  because 
there  were  not  eyes  there  as  keen  as  the  father's 
eye,  not  because  there  were  not  heads  there  as 
cool    and    well-balanced    as    the    father's    head, 


254      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

but  because  the  boy  felt  instinctively  that  there 
was  something  in  the  father's  heart,  a  love  tie, 
a  love  sight,  a  love  skill  mightier  than  muscle 
or  eye  or  brain,  which  would  never,  never  let 
him  fall.  So  with  the  boy,  man  swung  off  by 
the  God  of  nature  with  evolution  as  the  rope 
over  the  abysses  of  earth  and  space  and  time  to 
pluck  the  flowers  of  knowledge,  love,  grace  and 
virtue,  he  can  do  it  without  fear  because  back 
of  all  law  and  force,  it  is  a  Father's  hand  which 
holds  the  rope. 


XIII 

A  SPIRIT  WORLD  AS  THE  NECESSARY 

OUTCOME  OF  THIS  WORLD'S 

EVOLUTION 

Having  traced  the  bearings  of  evolution  on 
some  of  the  great  problems  of  religion  that  are 
connected  more  especially  with  this  present 
world  and  this  present  life,  we  come  naturally 
to  its  relation  with  those  which  open  out  be- 
yond earth  and  time  into  a  spirit  world  and  a 
future  life,  or,  to  express  it  scholastically,  to 
the  eschatology  of  evolution. 

It  is  a  subject  whose  significance  is  in  some 
respects  less  and  in  some  greater  in  our  day 
than  it  ever  was  before.  Less,  because  man 
and  society  have  now  reached  a  stage  in  their 
evolution  at  which  life  here  to  many  persons 
is  so  rich,  rounded  and  complete  that  they  have 
little  temptation  to  look  beyond  it  for  another 
which  shall  fill  out  its  deficicnces.  Greater, 
because  the  very  wealth  and  wonder  of  what 
has  been  evolved  and  is  yet  further  to  be 
evolved,  make  its  final  loss  seem  all  the  more 
255 


256      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

terrible,  and  our  interest  in  its  final  outcome 
all  the  more  absorbing.  Immortality  and  the 
spirit  world,  connected  with  the  idea  of  an 
endless  evolution  alike  to  the  universe  and  to 
ourselves,  mean  more,  infinitely  more,  than  was 
possible  when  their  utmost  reach  was  an  ex- 
istence and  a  heaven — 

"Beyond  the  blooming  and  the  fading, 
Beyond  the  shining  and  the  shading, 
Beyond  the  hoping  and  the  dreading/' 

mean  so  much  more,  that  their  very  greatness 
is  what  most  stirs  our  doubt  as  to  their  pos- 
sibility. Then  there  are  those  affections, 
those  yearnings  to  meet  and  know  and  love 
again  those  we  have  met  and  known  and  loved 
on  earth,  which  are  surely  not  less  ardent,  not 
less  characterized  with  eternity-hunger  now 
than  in  the  past.  And  so,  taking  all  together, 
I  believe  that  man  is  asking  to-day,  if  not  with 
more  faith  and  hope,  yet  with  more  eagerness 
and  desire  than  ever  before,  the  old,  old  ques- 
tion, If  a  man  die  shall  he  live  again? 

Four  different  sources  have  been  recognized 
in  the  past  as  the  ones  from  which  possibly  to 
get  its  answer, — one,  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion of  it  by  Deity,  witnessed  to  by  miracles 
and  especially  by  the  supreme  miracle  of 
Christ's    resurrection    from   the   dead;   another 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  257 

the  revelation  of  it  by  spirits  once  on  earth, 
who  have  returned  from  beyond  its  bourne  to 
tell  their  friends,  yet  here,  of  the  world  and 
life  which  are  there;  a  third,  the  soul's  direct 
perception  of  it  through  its  own  faculties,  as 
witnessed  by  the  belief  in  it  among  all  people ; 
and  a  fourth,  the  intimations  and  proofs  of  it 
found  in  the  arrangements  and  outlooks  of  this 
present  world. 

But  as  regards  the  first  of  these  answers 
while  there  are  multitudes  of  people  who  rest 
in  it  joyfully  as  the  all-sufficient  ground  of 
their  faith,  there  are  other  multitudes  who 
under  the  stress  of  modern  criticism  have  had 
their  trust  in  its  reliability  greatly  weakened. 
As  regards  the  second  source,  while  to  those 
who  have  in  themselves  the  spiritualistic  fac- 
ulty, its  testimony  is  very  precious  and  con- 
vincing, its  value  to  the  world  at  large  has 
been  utterly  destroyed  by  the  unspirituality  of 
its  communications  and  the  immensities  of 
fraud  with  which  it  has  been  connected ;  and  as 
regards  the  other  two  sources,  those  of  nature 
and  of  human  nature,  their  answers  hitherto 
have  been  so  vague  and  logically  far-fetched 
that  only  a  determined  believer  beforehand  could 
ever  be  convinced  of  their  truth.  So  it  is  not 
strange  that  with  the  advent  on  a  stage  of  this 
new  source  of  knowledge,  evolution,  one   that 


258      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

reaches  back  as  nothing  else  has  ever  done 
into  the  immeasurable  past  and  has  given  us 
so  clearly  the  story  of  man's  origin,  there 
should  have  been  an  eagerness  to  find  out 
whether  it  can  reach  forward  with  equal  cer- 
tainty into  the  immeasurable  future,  and  solve 
in  a  like  manner  the  problem  of  man's  destiny. 
Its  first  answer,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  any- 
thing but  encouraging.  Directing  its  in- 
quiries to  the  origin  in  the  human  mind  of  that 
belief  in  a  spirit  world  and  a  spirit  life  which 
is  now  so  prevalent  among  all  people,  instead 
of  finding  it  came  from  a  direct  perception  of 
its  reality,  it  has  been  traced  back  by  Spencer, 
Frazer,  Tylor,  Lubbock  and  others  to  the 
crudest  and  most  superstitious  material 
sources, — dreams,  shadows  flitting  over  the 
ground,  breaths  of  air  which  could  not  be  seen, 
strange  noises,  and  motions  of  objects  without 
any  apparent  mover,  trivial  things  that  we 
now  know  well  enough  must  have  had  a  phys- 
ical origin;  and  it  has  been  shown  by  in- 
numerable examples  how  these  early  material- 
istic impressions  have  been  developed  step  by 
step  under  the  aid  of  mythology,  and  of  the 
poetic  imagination,  "giving  to  airy  nothings  a 
local  habitation  and  a  name,"  into  our  present 
refined  conceptions  of  a  heavenly  world.  It  is 
a  most  depressing  study.     Very  naturally  the 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  259 

reader  of  its   results   is  led  to   feel  that  what 
started  so  evidently  as  a  materialistic  miscon- 
ception   at   one   end   of   the   line,   cannot  have 
grown   into    a   reliable    spiritual   reality   at   its 
other  end,  and  that  a  world  whose  foundations 
rest  on  a  dream  must  be  in  its  loftiest  super- 
structure  no   better   than   a  dream   also.     We 
have  exactly  the  same  starting  point  of  super- 
stition rising  to-day  in  the  mind  even  of  civ- 
ilized man.     Let  anyone  be  alone  at  midnight 
in  a   strange  house,  or  walk  alone  through  a 
graveyard    at    that    dark    and    fearful    hour 
"when    injured    ghosts    complain"    and    notice 
how  startling,  in  spite  of  all  his  sceptical  phi- 
losophy,   is    every    unusual    sight    and    sound. 
Read  Mrs.  Crowe's  "Night  Side  of  Nature"  in 
the  night  and  prevent  the  hair,  if  you  have  got 
any,  from  rising  on  the  outside  of  your  head, 
whatever  the  flatness   of  your  incredulity  may 
be  on  its  inside. 

Butler's  Hudebras  did  not  go  astray  in  his 
satire  when  he  sang 

"Night  is  the  Sabbath  of  mankind." 

And  Coleridge's   Ancient  Mariner  had   only   a 
common  experience  in  being 

"Like  one  that  on  a  lonesome  road 
Doth  walk  in   fear  and  dread, 


260      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

And  having  cnce  turned  round,  walks  on 

And  turns  no  more  his  head, 
Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 

Doth  close  behind  him  tread." 

With  the  appearance  of  the  sunlight  and  the 
society  of  our  fellowmen,  such  sights  and  sounds 
all  sink  back  into  their  true  place  as  mere  phys- 
ical phenomena, — are  what  no  enlightened  reli- 
gion ever  thinks  of  referring  to  now  as  any 
foundation  of  its  belief  in  a  spirit  world.  And 
why,  it  is  asked,  should  the  faith  which  has  been 
evolved  out  of  precisely  similar  ones  existing 
among  savages  thousands  of  years  ago,  be  re- 
garded by  us  as  of  any  higher  authority? 

To  give  a  single  illustration, — the  night 
before  my  father  died  he  told  me  the  story  of  a 
man  he  knew  of  when  a  boy,  a  rough,  dare- 
devil sort  of  fellow,  despising  all  belief  in 
God  and  spirits,  who  had  occasion  very  late  one 
dark  night  to  pass  by  the  old  graveyard  in 
Ipswich,  at  that  time  a  very  lonesome  and  neg- 
lected spot.  When  directly  opposite  to  it, 
he  heard  a  low,  pathetic  moan  come  from  over 
in  its  enclosure.  Most  people  about  that  time 
would  have  hastened  their  pace  if  not  into  a 
run  yet  into  a  double-quick  march.  But  he 
said  to  himself,  "Well,  now  is  a  good  chance 
for  me  to  find  out  all  by  myself  whether  there 
are  really  any  such  things  as  ghosts  or  not," 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  261 

so  he  clambered  over  the  wall,  and  followed  the 
sound,  breaking  forth  at  intervals,  till  he  came 
to  the  door  of  a  tomb.  Most  of  us  would 
probably  have  ended  our  investigations  as  to 
the  reality  of  a  spirit  world  right  there,  and 
have  hurried  back  to  our  own  flesh  and  blood 
world.  But  this  sceptical  old  man  resolved  to 
see  the  thing  through,  so  tried  to  open  the 
tomb  door  and  get  in.  But  it  was  locked  and 
rusty,  evidently  had  not  been  opened  for 
years.  Nevertheless,  with  his  rattling,  more 
distinct  than  ever  came  forth  the  pathetic 
moan,  not  exactly  human,  but  enough  so  to 
suggest  that  it  might  come  out  of  what  was 
once  a  human  throat  now  somewhat  dry  with 
death's  dust.  With  that  he  climbed  up  on  top 
of  the  tomb,  and  there  found  that  a  part  of 
it  had  caved  in,  leaving  a  hole  large 
enough  for  his  body  to  get  through,  and  out 
of  which,  beyond  all  question,  came  the  moan, 
reminding  him  of  the  hymn,  "Hark  from  the 
tombs  a  doleful  sound."  Afraid  if  he  jumped 
in  directly,  he  would  never  be  able  to  climb  out, 
he  hunted  around  in  the  dark  till  he  found  a 
stick  large  enough  to  lay  across  the  hole,  then 
tied  his  handkerchief  to  it  and  let  himself  down 
into  a  place  a  little  darker  and  more  forbid- 
ding than  even  Grant  Allen  has  ever  pursued 
his    investigations    in,    and     feeling    carefully 


262      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

around  among  the  coffins  towards  the  corner 
from  which  at  intervals  the  moan  still  came, 
what  do  you  suppose  he  found?  A  little  lamb 
that  while  feeding*  above,  had  fallen  down 
through  the  opening  and  broken  its  leg.  I  am 
glad  to  say  he  did  not  leave  the  poor  creature 
there,  but  clasping  his  legs  about  it  pulled  him- 
self out  and  went  whistling  home  more  a  scep- 
tic than  ever,  and  showing  his  Christian  friends 
the  next  morning  the  specimen  ghost  he  had 
resurrected  from  a  tomb. 

How  many  are  the  ghost  stories  and  the 
uncanny  things  the  world  in  all  ages  has  been 
full  of,  that,  traced  to  their  source,  would  be 
found  to  have  a  similar  lamb-like  origin?  And 
how  natural  it  is  to  infer  that  the  belief  which 
has  been  evolved  from  them  is  equally  baseless: 
but  this  is  only  a  superficial  inference.  Para- 
doxical as  it  is,  the  physical  origin  of  such 
sights  and  sounds  is  a  vastly  better  evidence  of 
a  real  spiritual  world  behind  them  than  their 
unexplained  source  would  be.  For,  unless  there 
had  been  in  man  beforehand  some  dim  conscious- 
ness of  such  a  world,  no  mere  physical  ob- 
ject, however  strange,  would  ever  have  sug- 
gested to  him  the  idea  of  spirit.  Such  objects 
are  like  the  strange  woods  washed  up  on  Euro- 
pean shores  in  their  relation  to  the  discovery  of 
this    new    geographical   world.     They   did   not 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  263 

make  of  themselves  the  belief  in  its  existence. 
That  belief  as  a  possibility  was  already  in  the 
mind  of  a  Columbus,  introduced  there  by  finer 
faculties  than  those  of  sight ;  and  it  was  that 
belief  which  gave  the  waifs  to  him  their  won- 
derful new  world  significance.  So  with  that 
other  world  across' wider  seas  whose  indications 
on  these  shores  of  time  were,  to  begin  with,  so 
fearfully  crude ;  it  was  faith  already  in  man's 
soul  which  clothed  them  with  a  spirit  meaning. 
Like  everything  in  evolution,  it  had  to  begin 
with  something  that  was  crude  and  unlike  its 
full  self, — a  nebulous  mist,  a  molten  globe,  a 
protoplasmic  cell.  That  non-physical  world 
we  all  have  within  us  did  the  same,  all  its  terms 
having  a  physical  origin,  and  all  bearing  still 
some  traces  of  their  lowly  birth, — as  the  under- 
standing, that  which  stands  under ;  right,  a 
straight  line,  wrong,  a  crooked  one ;  morality, 
outward  custom,  and  the  like.  And  yet  who 
now  on  that  account  believes  that  what  they 
stand  for  intellectually  and  morally  is  any  the 
less  distinct  reality? 

And  what  is  true  with  regard  to  those  an- 
cient things  in  which  faith  in  a  spirit  world 
began,  is  true  with  regard  to  what  are  called 
our  superstitions  now.  They  are  not  really 
superstitions,  that  is,  things  standing  over 
our    faith,    but    substances,    things    standing 


264      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

under  it,  as  the  writer  of  Hebrews  uses  the 
word,  that  is,  the  foundation  of  the  higher 
things  hoped  for.  Instead  of  being  despised, 
they  are  to  be  honored, — are  worth  more  than 
all  the  books  of  theology  ever  written  as  proofs 
of  a  spirit  world.  The  subconscious  man  is 
always  the  true,  natural  man,  is  always  reli- 
gious even  when  the  one  above  him,  the  con- 
scious man,  is  an  atheist,  is  often  more  truly 
religious  than  when  the  one  above  him  is  pro- 
fessedly a  Christian.  We  all  of  us  have  in  this 
under  personality,  not  only  a  marvel  of  psychol- 
ogy, but  treasures  of  knowledge-material  with 
regard  to  the  past,  more  wonderful  than  the 
fossils  geology  digs  out  of  the  rocks,  more 
ancient  than  any  written  history,  more  pre- 
cious religiously  than  any  apostolic  manu- 
scripts found  by  pious  seekers,  buried  in 
Syrian  cells.  The  beauty  of  them  is  they  are 
born  anew  with  every  child,  are  what  time  never 
can  crumble  into  dust.  Some  day  evolution 
will  learn  to  read  them  as  one  of  its  richest 
chapters.  And  among  them  it  will  find,  not 
least  precious,  the  indications  from  the  very 
start,  crude  though  it  be,  of  a  genuine  spir- 
itual   faculty     in    our    human     nature: 

"Like  plants  in  mines  which  never  saw  the  sun 
But  dream  of  him  and  guess  where  he  may  be, 
And  do  their  best  to  climb  and  get  to  him." 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  265 

But  this  faculty,  how  did  it  originate,  how 
is  its  existence  a  proof  in  any  way  of  an  actual 
objective  spirit  world?  These  are  questions 
evolution  must  answer  before  we  can  be  sure  of 
a  realm  beyond  matter  in  which  a  future  life  is 
possible.  They  are  ones  it  does  answer,  and 
its  answer  is,  precisely  in  the  same  way  that 
man  got  his  other  faculties  and  is  sure  of  an 
objective  material  world.  How  did  the  primi- 
tive animal  from  which  man  is  descended  get 
its  bodily  eye?  By  the  action  on  its  general 
nervous  sensibility  of  that  world  of  light  it  was 
surrounded  with.  How  its  ear?  By  the  action 
and  in  the  same  way  of  the  atmospheric  world 
of  sound.  How  his  intellectual  powers?  By 
the  action  of  that  truth,  which  is  in  all  things, 
on  the  bit  of  brain  the  action  of  his  outer 
senses  had  gradually  stored  up.  It  is  all  ob- 
scure as  yet,  but  about  the  tendency  of  the 
environment  to  produce  changes  in  the 
environed  that  will  bring  them  into  relations 
with  each  other,  there  can  be  no  question.  Wo 
see  it  in  the  different  colors  the  different  seasons 
make  in  the  fur  of  animals  at  the  North;  in  the 
modifications  which  have  taken  place  in  the 
whale,  once  beyond  question  a  land  animal,  to 
fit  it  for  the  water ;  in  the  dependence  of  a 
child  on  the  talk  of  other  children  to  develop 
its  own  powers  of  speech,  and  in  the  need  with 


266      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

us  all  of  a  civilized  atmosphere  in  which  to 
grow  up  as  civilized  human  beings.  On  the 
other  hand,  how  can  there  be  any  stronger 
proof  than  the  eye  itself  that  there  is  around 
it  a  world  of  light ;  than  the  ear  that  there  is  in 
contact  with  it  an  atmospheric  world  of  sound, 
and  our  intellectual  faculties  that  the  world  in 
which  we  live  is  an  intelligible  and  truth-re- 
lated world? 

Why  now  does  not  the  same  proof  hold  good 
with  regard  to  the  origin  in  man  of  spiritual 
vision  and  the  existence  around  him  of  a  spirit 
world?  When  all  his  other  faculties  had  been 
started,  his  spiritual  environment  acted  on  his 
inner  sensitiveness  in  the  same  way  that  his 
light  environment  had  on  his  original  nerve 
sensitiveness,  and  the  result  was  at  last  an  inner 
vision  for  its  own  diviner  radiance.  Of  course 
it  was  at  first  very  imperfect  in  its  development 
and  efficiency.  Like  the  bodily  eye  it  would 
not  recognize  itself  as  a  distinct  entity,  but 
only  the  physical  objects  that  it  seemed  to  be 
reflected  from.  But  a  beginning  had  been 
made,  the  origin  of  a  new  species  in  the  king- 
dom of  mind,  so  that  thenceforth  it  was  only  a 
process  of  ordinary  evolution  for  it  to  dis- 
tinguish spirit  itself  from  the  strange  physical 
things  which  aroused  it  into  action,  and  if  we 
can   trust   evolution's   law  of   the   environment 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  267 

anywhere,  then  surely  man  as  a  spiritual  being 
must  have,  not  far  away,  but  right  around  him, 
a  spirit  world. 

The  discussion  thus  far  may  seem  to  be  a  look 
backward  instead  of  forward,  an  inquiry  into 
the  beginning  of  things  rather  than  into  their 
eschatology  But  before  showing  the  possi- 
bility of  a  life  beyond  this  present  world,  the 
first  step  must  evidently  be  to  show  the  possi- 
bility of  a  world  beyond  this  one  into  which 
for  the  life  which  is  here  to  evolve ;  and  with 
such  a  one  shown,  and  shown  also  to  have  be- 
gun its  work  on  man  already  in  time,  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  presumption  of  his  being  des- 
tined to  enter  it  altogether  at  last,  is  not  a 
little  increased. 

Passing  now  from  human  nature  to  inquire 
of  physical  nature  through  the  same  inter- 
preter what  its  teaching  is  as  to  its  having 
anything  at  last  to  send  on  into  the  spirit 
world,  its  answer  at  first  is  even  more  discour- 
aging than  was  the  opening  result  of  its  in- 
quiries within.  If  the  universe  is  full  of 
evolution, — forces  which  build  up,  it  is  full 
also  of  dissolution,  forces  which  tear  down. 

"Evolution  ever  climbing  after  some  ideal  good, 
And    Reversion    ever    dragging    Evolution    in    the 
mud." 


268      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

The  flower  unfolds  into  beauty  but  to  fade  into 
dust;  the  forest  into  verdure,  but  to  drop  into 
death ;  the  animal  into  strength  but  to  age 
into  weakness.  Mountains,  rocks,  continents 
are  only  the  flowers  of  a  little  longer  day ; 
species,  races,  nations,  only  the  animals  of  a 
little  larger  growth.  While  minds  grow  god- 
like with  maturing  years  and  have  their 
thoughts  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns, 
yet  as  the  years  ripen  more  and  the  suns  pro- 
ceed farther,  even  minds  sink  earthward  and 
have  their  thoughts  narrowed  again.  Write  at 
twenty-five  the  inspiring  words, — 

"Not  in  vain  the  distance  beacons,  forward  let  us 
range/' 

and  at  eighty-five  the  despairing  wail, — 

"Gone  the  cry  of  forward,  forward,  lost  within  a 
gath'ring  gloom." 

And  with  birth,  growth  and  decay  the  history 
of  all  the  separate  parts  of  the  universe,  how 
direct  appears  the  inference  that  it  will  finally 
be  the  same  with  the  universe  as  a  whole,  its  life 
wither  as  the  rose,  its  humanity  perish  with  the 
animals  from  which  it  sprang,  its  ripened  star 
fruit 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  269 

"World  by  world  drop  mellowed  off 
The  winkling  stalk  of  time/' 

and  its  mighty  trunk,  dead  at  the  core  and  dead 
in  its  every  nebulous  branch,  tumble  back  like 
the  tree  into  the  chaos  from  which  it  came. 

Direct,  however,  as  such  an  inference  seems, 
it  is  really  only  nature's  outside  answer,  only  a 
method  of  condemning  superficiality  in  her  stu- 
dents such  as  she  uses  everywhere.  Going 
deeper  down  into  her  teachings,  going,  espe- 
cially, with  evolutionary  principles  as  our 
guide,  it  will  be  found  that  nature's  old  path- 
way of  death,  hitherto  so  full  of  darkness,  is 
itself  partly  luminous  with  life's  light,  that  out 
of  its  very  decay  there  shines  a  mild  phos- 
phorescent glow.  And,  faint  though  it  may 
be,  as  compared  with  what  we  could  wish  for, 
yet  with  so  many  of  the  other  lights  paling  on 
which  in  the  past  humanity  has  relied,  it  surely 
is  well  to  open  our  eyes  as  widely  as  possible 
to  its  revelations. 

What,  then,  is  death  as  interpreted  by  this 
new  philosophy?  Not  the  antagonist  of  life, 
not  a  destroyer  who  wholly  undoes  what  growth 
accomplishes ;  but  only  one  of  a  larger  life's 
conditions,  only  a  movement  one  way  of  a  grow- 
ing universe's  mighty  heart-beat.     Two  of  the 


270      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

great  principles  of  evolution,  as  you  well  know, 
are  the  struggle  for  existence  between  different 
agencies,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Na- 
ture has  used  these  in  the  realm  of  animals  and 
plants  between  death  and  unbroken  life ;  and 
paradoxical  as  it  sounds,  it  is  literally  true  that 
death  has  survived  because  in  the  struggle  it 
has  been  found  the  fittest  to  make  animals  and 
plants  live.  It  has  come  about  in  this  way: 
among  the  original  protoplasmic  cells  in  which 
all  life  began,  variation  produced  some  that 
continued  their  lives  and  produced  their  off- 
spring by  simply  dividing  themselves  and  never 
dying ;  others  that  continued  their  lives  by  dif- 
ferentiating themselves  into  two  kinds  without 
dividing,  one  of  which  nourished  the  other  and 
after  reproducing  its  offspring  out  of  them, 
itself  died.  Some  of  the  first  kind,  dividing 
and  redividing  as  fast  as  they  grew,  have  come 
through  all  the  geologic  eons  to  this  day,  are 
the  ones,  as  Weismann  has  shown  that  thus 
far  have  been  immortal.  But  they  have  never 
get  beyond  their  original  cell  life, — could  not, 
because  simply  repeating  themselves  by  divi- 
sion they  had  no  extra  cells  to  be  used  up  in 
ministering  to  higher  vital  functions,  no  chance 
for  variation  in  their  offspring,  and  nothing  in 
themselves    for    improved    environments   to    act 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  271 

upon.  They  are  the  amoebic  forms  which  are 
to  be  found  any  summer  day  in  our  ditches  and 
pools, — down  there  that  we  have  to  go  to  find 
earth's  genuine  immortals,  not  to  any  French 
academy, — are  likewise  the  world's  genuine 
conservatives,  and  real  unadulterated  first 
families. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  cells  which  began  life 
with  dying  are  the  ones  that  have  forever  pro- 
gressed. Keeping  their  differentiations  to- 
gether they  could  organize  and  use  a  part  of 
their  number  up  in  other  functions  than  those 
of  reproduction.  When  the  parents  died,  a 
vast  amount  of  the  old  habits  and  conserva- 
tisms that  were  fitted  only  for  an  old  environ- 
ment died  out  of  the  race  with  them.  W7ith  a 
new  set  of  cells  to  be  built  up  around  the  trans- 
mitted ones  in  each  generation,  there  was  a 
chance  for  variation  and  the  new  environment 
to  make  improvements.  The  children  to  be  as 
good  as  their  parents,  had  to  be  better.  So 
life  has  gone  on,  mounting  with  each  set  of 
deaths  into  higher  and  higher  and  higher  forms, 
till  it  has  culminated  in  man.  Do  you  want  to 
see  the  contrast  between  the  outcomes  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  between  these  two  prin- 
ciples, dying  and  continued  living,  look  at  a 
scientist  in  his  laboratory  bending  his  eyes  over 


272      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

his  80,000  power  microscope  and  the  wriggling 
amoeba  in  its  object  glass,  that  he  is  using  all 
its  powers  to  see. 

It  is  a  process  which  is  still  going  on  in  the 
man.  He  lives  by  dying.  The  reproductive 
cells  out  of  which  he  is  bom  remain  immortal, 
but  all  the  somatic  ones  by  which  he  grows 
and  acts,  are  with  every  moment  having  some 
of  their  number  used  up  and  replaced  by  new 
ones.  That  is  what  eating  is — filling  up  the 
ranks  of  the  little  killed  cell-soldiers  in  life's 
battle  with  fresh  recruits.  Love  and  life  have 
always  been  known  to  have  a  close  connection 
with  each  other.  But  how?  It  is  through  dy- 
ing,— the  skeleton  death  the  finest  who  joins 
their  hands  and  speaks  their  benediction.  The 
undying  cells  continue  life  by  division,  the  dy- 
ing ones  by  uniting.  The  sex  relation  among 
animals  came  into  existence  side  by  side  with 
their  mortality.  Strange  and  wonderful  still 
is  their  connection.  The  thrill  of  reproduc- 
tion is  the  thrill  of  death.  If  to  love  is  to  live, 
to  love  is  also  equally  to  die.  And  in  science 
the  real  figure  of  what  is  called  the  last  enemy 
is  not  a  skeleton  but  the  blooming  cheek  and 
rounded  limbs  of  youth  filled  with  that  sex  at- 
traction which  draws  men  and  maidens  to- 
gether,— cupid's  arrows  that  are  death's  real 
darts. 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  273 

It  is  a  law  which  holds  equally  good  in  so- 
cial relations  and  with  regard  to  humanity  as 
a  whole.  Individuals,  institutions,  races,  reli- 
gions are  but  larger  cells.  The  conservatism 
that  would  preserve  them  would  keep  society 
forever  in  its  protoplasmic  state.  It  is  by 
their  dying  that  the  world  increases  in  its  finer 
life.  As  Wendell  Phillips  used  to  say:  "Na- 
ture's method  of  reform  is  to  kill  off  the  old  and 
train  up  the  young."  Humanity's  march  is  a 
funeral  march, — one-half  of  all  the  stepping 
stones  of  progress  gravestones,  the  brightest 
vista  of  earth's  future  that  which  opens 
through  its  tombs.  We  do  well  to  cover  our 
dead  with  flowers,  well  to  adorn  our  cemeteries 
with  lawns  and  groves  and  pleasant  things, 
for  they  symbolize  as  nothing  else  can,  the 
ever  finer  life  which  is  to  grow  out  of  them. 
Personal  mortality  written  out  scientifically 
means  social  immortality ;  the  burial  of  the  in- 
dividual the  resurrection  of  the  race.  It  is 
dead  lips  that  speak  the  world's  better  proph- 
ecies ;  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  that  catch  on 
their  peaks  with  each  rising  sun  a  fairer  light 
of  man's  new  day  than  ever  flashed  on  her 
thrones. 

"My  sister  sunshine  smiled  on  me, 
And  of  my  visage  made  a  shade. 


274      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

Behold,  she  cried,  the  mystery 

Of  which  thou  art  afraid. 
For  death  is  but  a  tenderness, 

A  shadow  that  unclouded  love 
Hath  fashioned  in  its  own  excess 

Of  radiance  from  above." 

But  accepting  this  as  the  interpretation  which 
evolution  gives  of  death  in  this  world  and  for 
the  race  here,  what  light,  it  may  be  asked,  does 
it  throw  on  it  with  reference  to  another  world 
and  the  individual  soul?  To  find  it  conducive 
to  a  higher  life  and  a  blessing  on  so  large  a 
scale  is  surely  something  even  in  this  direction 
— affords  at  any  rate  the  presumption  that 
what  is  a  beneficence  and  has  an  upward  trend 
for  the  whole,  cannot  be  entirely  the  opposite 
in  its  bearing  on  the  parts.  Look  first  and 
see  what  it  really  does  in  its  dealings  with  the 
parts  beginning  with  the  humblest  ones,  even 
here. 

The  leaves  of  the  tree  unfolding  into  beauty 
with  the  breath  of  spring,  do  indeed,  with  au- 
tumn's waning  suns,  fall  withered  to  the 
ground,  and  to  the  casual  glance  it  seems  as 
if  the  tree  which  bore  them,  had  returned,  at 
the  year's  close,  to  the  exact  condition  it  was 
in  at  the  year's  beginning.  But  its  condition 
is  not  the  same.  Something  out  of  each  tiny 
leaf  has  gone  into  the  wood  of  the  tree,  a  bal- 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  275 

ance  over  death,  as  it  were,  the  leaf's  little 
soul,— which  is  stored  up  in  it  as  the 
stock  with  which  to  begin  its  next  year's 
growth. 

The  tree  lives  fifty,  seventy,  a  hundred  years, 
and  then  that  too  dies.     But  death  even  then 
does  not  put  things  all  back  where  they  were 
at  the  start.     The  soil  beneath  it  is  made  the 
richer  by  its  decaying  wood,  and  its  fruit  has 
gone  from  year  to  year  as  the  food  of  beasts 
and  birds  and  as  the  seed  of  other  trees,  and 
it  is  in  them  that  something  out  of  it  still  lives. 
These  in  their  turn  perish,  but  their  instincts, 
habits,   experience,   life, — a   subtle   essence   out 
of  all   they  have   gathered  up,   is   transmitted 
to  their  offspring,  helping  to  develop  the  spe- 
cies, genus,  order,  to  which  they  belong.      Spe- 
cies, genus,  order  in  the  long  course  of  ages 
die  out,  as  in  many  a  "scarped  cliff  and  quar- 
ried stone"  we  have  the  evidence ;  but  it  is  only 
to  have  new  ones  with  an  inheritance  of  what 
is  best  in  the  old  ones  born  in  their  place — a 
point  where  Darwin's  theory  as  to  the  origin  of 
species  supplies  grandly  what  otherwise  would 
be  a  missing  link.     And  by  and  by,  as  the  result 
of  all  these  livings  and  dyings,  man  becomes  a 
possibility  in  nature,  man  at  first,  indeed,  but 
little  above  the  brutes,  but  by  a  continuance  of 
the  same  process,  the  living  and  dying  of  in- 


276      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

dividuals,  tribes,  nations,  civilizations,  religions, 
each  adding  something  to  the  stock,  man  at 
last  in  the  full  splendor  of  his  nineteenth  cen- 
tury estate. 

All  growth  repeats  thus  the  growth  of  a 
single  tree,  is  itself  really  the  growth  of  a 
larger  tree,  the  mighty  tree  Yggdrasil,  as  our 
Scandinavian  ancestors  called  it;  all  Junes  do 
what  Lowell  has  sung  so  poetically  of  a  single 
June, 

"Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 

An  instinct  within  it  which  reaches  and  towers 
And  groping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 
Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers/' 

and  then  to  a  soul  in  man.  And  it  is  in  man, 
individual  and  social,  that  the  accumulated 
essence  of  all  these  climbings  is  stored  up,  in 
his  soul  that  all  of  them  which  is  finest  and 
best,  freed  by  their  dyings  from  what  was  crude 
and  temporary  still  lives,  an  immortality,  you 
see,  infinitely  higher  than  that  of  the  bare  origi- 
nal protoplasmic  cells  that  death  has  never 
touched. 

But  what  is  to  be  the  final  result  of  this 
mighty  process  still  going  on,  what  the  com- 
pleted outcome  of  these  myriad  accumulations 
of  life  over  death  that  the  world  is  getting 
full  of? 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  277 

For  awhile  the  answer,  apparently  sanctioned 
by  science,  was  the  unfolding  here  on  earth  of 
a  perfect  race,  living  in  a  perfect  world,  a  real 
Eden  in  the  future  that  would  more  than  equal 
the    storied   one   of   the   past, 

"Every  tiger  madness  muzzled,  every  serpent  pas- 
sion killed, 
Every  grim  ravine  a  garden,  every  blazing  desert 
tilled," 

and  then  the  concentration  of  all  nature's 
forces  ever  after  in  its  preservation. 

It  is  a  beautiful  conception,  the  coming  in- 
deed here  on  earth  of  a  kingdom  of  heaven, 
an  immortality  not  of  ourselves  as  individuals, 
but  of  our  race,  of  all  that  is  best  in  ourselves 
and  in  all  past  races  going  on  to  live  in  others, 
the  immortality  George  Eliot  has  sung  so 
charmingly  in  her  "Choir  Invisible." 

But  it  is  an  immortality  that  we  now  know, 
as  a  matter  of  scientific  forecast,  can  never  be 
realized.  The  earth  will  indeed  reach  in  the 
far  future  its  stage  not  of  perfection,  but  of 
betterness,  its  golden  age  when  all  that  earth 
can  be,  it  will  be.  But  it  will  not  remain  at 
that  stage  forever,  any  more  than  the  October 
fruit  will  always  remain  on  the  tree,  or  the 
June  sun  always  in  the  summer  sky.  The  law 
of  death   will  indeed  be   carried   out   then   the 


278      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

same  as  it  is  now, — after  ripeness  decay,  after 
evolution  dissolution.  Humanity  will  become 
an  old  man,  society  a  withered  flower,  civiliza- 
tion a  fallen  tree,  the  world  a  dilapidated 
house.  A  time  will  come  when  its  last  child  will 
be  born,  its  last  love-word  spoken,  its  last  man, 
sole  heir  of  all  its  treasures,  look  over  his  king- 
dom, a  time  when  the  earth  itself  shall  be  a 
vast  tomb  without  a  breath  of  air  to  stir  its 
stillness  or  a  falling  raindrop  to  break  its  peace, 
a  time  when  this  whole  material  universe,  its 
every  sun  expired,  its  every  motion  made,  sink 
back  to  that  from  which  it  came.  And  with 
such  a  fate  before  it,  evidently  we  must  seek 
some  other  answer  than  that  of  a  continuance 
here  for  all  that  evolution  through  the  ages 
has  accumulated  in  human  souls.  What  else 
must  it  be, — the  death  of  these  also,  the  ab- 
sorption of  them  back  into  Deity,  or  like  a 
flame  the  blowing  of  them  out  altogether? 

It  is  an  answer  that  in  the  light  of  evolution 
has  a  meaning  of  horror  to  it  such  as  it  never 
did  before,  one  against  which  man's  whole 
moral  nature,  one  of  the  choicest  products  of 
evolution,  instinctively  revolts,  one  which 
makes  the  universe  a  tragedy  in  comparison 
with  which  all  the  tragedies  ever  enacted  in  it, 
sink  into  insignificance.  Think  for  a  moment  of 
all  the  enormous  cost  at  which  even  up  to  what 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  279 

it  is  now,  it  has  been  evolved, — of  the  myriad 
brutes  that  toiled  on  its  foundations  before  the 
advent  of  man,  and  of  the  myriads  since,  that 
have  died  to  furnish  it  with  food ;  of  the  sav- 
age races  that  groped  their  way  through  the 
chill  and  dark  of  long  glacier  ages  and  super- 
stition's  nights    to   civilization's   dawn;   of   the 
mothers   who   have   travailed   in   pain   to   bring 
forth   its   children;   of  the  workmen   who  have 
wrought  in  weary  mines  and  fields  and  factories 
to  heap  up  its  material  treasures ;  of  the  vast 
armies  that  have  fought  and  bled  and  died  in 
battle   agonies   to   decide   its   questions;   of  the 
horrible  sufferings  that  have  come  from  its  ac- 
cidents ;  of  the  thinkers  and  scholars  who  have 
delved  and  soared,  and  line  by  line  have  sought 
out   its   truths;    of   the   singers   whose   inspired 
souls   have  poured  out  its  treasures  of  poetry 
and  song,  and  of  the  martyr  throngs  who  gen- 
eration after  generation  have  laid  down  their 
property,  their  lives,  their  all,  on  its  altars  of 
liberty,  religion  and  reform; — and  what,  with 
such  an  ending,  is  the  good,   at  last,  of  their 
life-long    toil,    what    the    advantage,    when    the 
summing  up  comes,  of  the  martyr's  devotion  and 
the  patriot's  zeal,  what  the  difference  weighed 
in    their    final    dust    between    virtue    and    vice, 
saint  and  sinner,  Jesus  and  Judas,  a  life  among 
the  stars  and  a  life  among  the  clods? 


280      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

"Spring,  summer,  autumn  and  winter,  and  all  these 

revolutions  of  the  earth, 
All  new,   old  revolutions   of  empires, — change  of 

the  tides, — what  is  all  of  it  worth? 
What    the    philosophies,    all    the    sciences,    poesy, 

varying  voices  of  prayer, 
All  that  is   noblest,   all  that  is   basest,  all  that   is 

filthy  and  all  that  is  fair? 
What  is  it  all,  if  we  all  of  us  end  but  in  being  our 

own  corpse  coffins  at  last, 
Swallowed  up  in  vastness,  lost  in  silence,  drowned 

in  the  deeps  of  a  meaningless  past? 
What  but  a  murmur  of  gnats  in  the  room,  or  a  mo- 
ment's anger  of  bees  in  a  hive?" 

Of  course  the  difference  between  them  is  im- 
mense as  we  go  along ;  of  course,  taken  day  by 
day  and  hour  by  hour,  it  is  better  to  do  right 
than  wrong,  live  nobly  than  live  meanly;  and 
with  all  the  world's  sorrow  and  pain,  it  must 
from  the  very  start  have  had  a  preponderating 
amount  of  happiness,  otherwise  it  never  would 
have  evolved  at  all. 

But  this  alone  does  not  satisfy — does  not 
really  give  any  meaning  to  an  evolution  which 
in  the  end  evolves  nothing.  It  takes  something 
more  than  happiness,  more  even  than  virtue's 
happiness,  to  make  life  worth  living,  takes  an 
object  ahead  for  the  virtue  to  enable  virtue  to 
be  really  happy,  or,  perhaps,  even  to  exist  at  all. 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  281 

A  poor  tramp,  asking  of  a  man  something  to 
eat  and  set  by  him  to  wheeling  sand  from  one 
side  of  the  road  to  the  other  and  back  again 
over  and  over,  to  earn  the  food,  after  trying 
it  a  few  times  rebelled  at  the  task,  and  asked 
for  something,  even  though  harder,  that  would 
be  of  some  use.     "Why,"  asked  his  employer, 
"what    difference    does    it    make    whether    you 
wheel   sand  back   and   forth,   or  dig  a   well,   so 
long  as  I  pay  you  for  it  the  same  wages?"    He 
could  not  explain  the  difference  in  words,  but 
he    felt    somehow    in    his    miserable    tramp    soul 
that  there  was  a  difference,  and  that  a  life  spent 
so  would  be  more  thoroughly  a  waste  than  to 
stroll  along  the  country  roads,  doing  nothing, 
or  to  lie  down  at  once  in  the  desert  dust  and 
die.     What   now   is   a   universe   beginning  and 
ending  in  fire-mist  but  such  a  shoveling  of  its 
atom    sand    from    one    side   of  eternity    to    the 
other,  all  without  final  use  and  having  its  myriad 
shovelers  do  it  simply  to  get  their  meals?     And 
however  excellent  the  meals  may  be  as  the  work- 
men go  along,  having  evm  happiness  for  one  of 
their  viands,  who  will   not   say  with  the   tramp, 
that    rather   than    waste    life   so,    if    would    have 
been  better  to  have  had  its  potencies  lie  down 
forever    undeveloped    in     their    original    atom 
heap  ? 

Directly  opposite  to  this  is  the  answer  that 


282      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

evolution  must  necessarily  give  to  the  question 
of  what  is  to  become  of  its  gains,  stored  up 
human  souls,  when  this  material  universe  shall 
reach  its  end.  To  say  that  they  are  to  end 
and  that  out  of  what  held  them  nothing  is  to 
come,  is  to  contradict  its  own  fundamental 
teaching  as  displayed  everywhere  else, — is  to 
make  nature  after  acting  for  countless  years 
along  the  line  of  evoking  out  of  every  other 
death  some  higher  forms  either  of  life,  or  of 
life's  dwelling,  when  it  comes  to  the  highest  and 
finest  thing  of  all,  a  universe,  reverse  its  prac- 
tice, give  up  its  principle.  If  true  to  itself, 
it  must  say,  rather,  that  as  out  of  the  myriad 
dying  things  of  the  past, — seeds,  animals,  na- 
tions, races,  civilizations,  religions,  there  have 
come,  as  a  rule,  ever  other  finer  and  better 
things  up  to  mind  and  soul,  so  when  the  en- 
casements of  mind  and  soul,  including  the  world 
itself,  are  destroyed,  out  of  their  d}7ing,  by  the 
same  law,  there  will  come  something  finer  and 
better  still,  into  which  their  life,  their  growth, 
their  essence  shall  go. 

What  can  this  finer  thing  be?  Nothing 
made  of  matter,  for  in  the  final  dissolution  all 
material  forms  must  necessarily  disappear. 
What  but  the  spiritual  part  of  the  world,  the 
human  souls,  in  which  the  finer  results  of  evolu- 
tion are  already  stored  up,  leaving  the  material 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  283 

universe  to  be  resolved  back  to  its  nebulous 
mist  and  possibly  to  be  used  over  and  over 
again,  as  the  elements  of  our  bodies  now  are, 
for  the  evolutions  of  other  and  yet  other  ad- 
ditions to  the  spirit  world,  or,  as  a  field  is,  on 
which  in  time's  unnumbered  larger  years  for 
repeated  crops  of  souls  to  be  raised? 

It  is  not  an  answer  that  gives  us  all  the  par- 
ticulars that  we  may  wish  to  know,  is  not  one 
that  is  without  some  very  decided  limitations  in 
its    scope.      But    it    docs    give    us    the    central 
truth  that  we  want  assurance  of  and  it  carries 
with  it,  if  not  directly,  yet  by  implication  a  war- 
rant   for   not    a    few    of   our   great   hopes.      It 
will  be  a  better  state  than  our  present  one,  for 
that  is  what  in  the  past  all  evolution  has  meant. 
Yet  not  a  new  and  strange  one,  for  its  begin- 
nings  are  what   we   have   become   familiar  with 
here   on   earth.     Its   immortality    will    be    indi- 
vidual and  personal,  for  it  is  in  individuals  and 
persons,   as   the   highest    outcome   of  evolution, 
that  what  it  is  constituted  of  is  stored  up  here; 
and  with  no  new  beings   born   out   of  them,   as 
they    are    in    the    continuation    of    life    and    its 
qualities    in    the    natural    world;    with    the    new 
birth,  as  we  know  it  already,  the  birth  <>f  new 
spiritual    faculties    in   the   individual    soul,— the 
only    conceivable    way    of    an     evolution     from 
earth    into    the    spirit    world    is    through    tin's 


284      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

world's  conscious  spiritual  beings.  And  as 
what  is  possible  for  one  soul  quickened  with 
spiritual  life,  must  be  possible  for  all  souls  in 
a  like  manner  quickened,  and  as  we  have  the 
evidence  on  earth  that  evolution  does  not  wait 
for  the  perfecting  of  the  old  before  starting 
the  new,  physical  life  appearing  long  before 
the  completion  of  the  physical  earth, — the  child 
before  the  parents'  maturity,  and  the  fruit  of 
the  tree  while  the  tree  itself  is  yet  growing, 
so  it  is  a  legitimate  inference  that  the  evolution 
of  spiritual  beings  into  the  spirit  world  should 
not  wait  till  the  far-off  ripening  of  humanity's 
stock  on  earth,  but  should  begin  with  its  first 
dying  child. 

All  honor,  then,  to  the  philosophy  which  gives 
the  world  this  ray  of  new  light,  imperfect 
though  it  is,  on  that  old,  old  way,  so  dim  and 
to  many  so  dark,  which  all  earth's  children 
sooner  or  later  have  to  travel.  It  derives  it, 
as  you  see,  not  from  a  miracle,  or  from  the  in- 
terference in  any  way  with  the  common  laws  of 
nature,  and  not  by  bringing  in  any  new  force 
or  principle,  but  from  nature's  ordinary  work- 
ing and  by  supposing  it  to  go  right  along, 
using  the  forces  and  principles  it  has  been  act- 
ing on  from  the  starting  of  its  first  atom  feet, 
— justifies  the  poet's  words. 


A  SPIRIT  WORLD  285 

"Gone  forever!     Ever?     No—for  since  our  dying 
race  began 
Ever  and  forever  was  the  leading  light  of  man." 

It  takes  the  material  world  at  its  darkest  place, 
its  myriad  dissolutions,  and  out  of  its  very 
deaths  wrings  the  lessons  of  life, — grapples  the 
most  terrible  weapon  of  doubt  and  turns  it  into 
a  beam  of  faith.  It  has  a  ray  of  light,  also,  not 
for  humanity  alone,  but  for  all  other  animal 
creatures  walking  with  it  the  same  dark  way, 
gives  a  meaning  to  their  lives,  their  toils,  their 
deaths  such  as  nothing  else  ever  has,  makes  the 
spirit  world  the  outcome,  not  of  human  growth 
alone,  but  of  the  whole  earth,  something  to 
which  the  lowest  monad  as  well  as  the  loftiest 
man  has  contributed  a  part.  For  as  the  best  of 
everything  which  has  ever  lived  has  remained 
over  and  helped  to  make  human  beings  and  hu- 
man conditions  and  is  represented  in  their  lives 
now,  so  it  will  have  helped  to  make  all  that 
human  beings  will  ever  be,  however  high  they 
mount,  and  will  be  represented  in  them  through 
all  years  and  all  worlds.  It  gives  animals,  if 
not  individual  immortality,  yet  the  immortality 
which  comes  from  "the  sweet  presence  of  a  good 
diffused  and  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense"; 
is    the    scientific    endorsement    of    Tennyson's 


286      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

hopeful  trust,  that  "not  a  worm  is  cloven  in 
vain;"  is  a  side  truth  from  Darwin's  maligned 
"Origin  of  Species"  which  lights  up  religiously 
what  realms  of  nature's  economy  as  to  brute 
suffering  hitherto  so  awfully  dark;  and  under 
it  Emerson's  mystic  words  as  to  nature's  inner 
meaning  become  how  literally  true. 

"Wilt  thou  not  ope  thy  heart  to  know 
What  rainbows  teach  and  sunsets  show, 
Verdict  which  accumulates 
From  lengthened  scroll  of  human  fates, 
Voice  of  earth  to  earth  returned, 
Prayer  of  saints  that  inly  burned, — 
Saying  what  is  excellent 
As  God  lives  is  permanent?" 


XIV 

THE  WARRANT  FOR  PRAYER  UNDER 
EVOLUTION 

The  problem  of  prayer,  and  especially  of  its 
petitioning  element,  is  unquestionably  one  of 
the  most  difficult  to  the  modern  thinking  mind 
of  any  in  the  whole  range  of  theology.  There 
are  many  persons,  not  sceptics  or  sinners,  but 
cordial  believers  and  doers  of  religion  in  its 
other  parts,  who  feel  that  its  praying  for  di- 
vine favors  is  the  mere  tradition  of  a  darker 
age,  inconsistent  with  the  larger  views  of  Deity 
and  of  the  divine  economy  that  men  have  come 
to  in  our  time,  and  is  what  reverence  itself 
demands  should  be  eliminated  alike  from  pri- 
vate and  public  worship.  Said  a  respected 
parishioner  to  me  awhile  ago,  "I  do  not  see  how 
you  as  a  believer  in  science  and  evolution  can 
ask  things  of  God  whose  giving  would  be  a  di- 
rect violation  of  their  most  fundamental  prin- 
ciples ;  and  for  one  instead  of  such  prayers  I 
wish  you  would  offer  for  our  meditations  simply 
some  noble  thoughts  or  lofty  aspiration."  Its 
287 


288      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

practice  has  actually  been  given  up  by  many 
liberal  thinkers ;  and  there  are  others,  not  yet 
prepared  to  drop  entirely  out  of  their  worship 
what  custom  has  so  long  endeared,  who  would 
compromise  the  matter  by  asking  simply  for 
spiritual  blessings,  or  by  expecting  answers  to 
their  petitions  only  in  their  reflex  influence  on 
themselves,  or  by  making  their  prayers  consist 
wholly  of  thanksgiving  and  praise. 

But  the  asking  element,  though  not  by  any 
means  the  whole  of  prayer,  is  historically  its 
root  and  starting  point.  Whatever  else  it  may 
unfold  into,  there  are  times  in  every  person's 
life  when  it  becomes  the  central  and  all-ab- 
sorbing thing;  emergencies  when  the  soul  feels 
it  must  have  not  only  communion  with  God,  but 
the  direct  help,  also,  of  his  everlasting  arm ;  and 
even  to  have  it  exert  a  beneficial  influence  on  the 
petitioner  himself  there  must  be  in  it  the  sin- 
cerity which  can  come  only  from  a  belief  in  its 
outward  efficacy. 

It  is  a  matter  with  regard  to  which  science 
has  indeed  hitherto  spoken  with  a  most 
discouraging  voice;  but  science  and  es- 
pecially science  in  its  new  garb  of  evolution, 
has  here,  the  same  as  in  many  other  places,  two 
voices  that  are  in  some  respects  directly  the  op- 
posites  of  each  other.  It  is  the  most  radical 
and  destructive,  and  also  the  most  conservative 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER   289 

and  protective,  of  all  forms  of  thought, — tears 
off  ruthlessly  the  outside  of  ancient  things,  but 
often  keeps  its  grip  on  their  core  when  every- 
thing else,  even  the  most  backward-looking 
philosophy,  has  given  them  up,  scatters  the 
petals  of  religion  on  the  ground,  as  nature  is 
now  doing  those  of  the  apple  tree,  but  only  to 
unfold  beyond  them  as  the  apple  tree  will,  the 
more  precious  fruit.  It  seems  to  me  it  does  so 
with  prayer;  and  in  discussing  the  subject  I 
want  first  to  set  forth  the  difficulties  it  puts  in 
the  way  of  its  being  answered,  and  then 
the  finer  voice  with  which  it  tells  us,  as  a  part 
of  itself,  that  it  has  in  a  large  way  always  been 
answered. 

Foremost  of  its  difficulties  is  the  modern 
view  of  what  the  universe  really  is  and  of  how 
its  affairs  are  carried  on.  The  view  under 
which  prayer  originated  was  that  of  the  world 
as  a  comparatively  small  abode  consisting  of 
various  independent  realms,  each  presided  over 
by  its  own  special  deity  who  conducted  its  af- 
fairs, like  a  human  absolute  sovereign,  by  the 
direct  edicts  of  his  will ;  and  under  such  a  view 
of  it  there  was  of  course  no  inconsistency 
in  a  person's  asking  his  god  to  do  for  him  one 
thing  rather  than  another,  and  to  favor  his 
own  subjects  rather  than  those  of  a  foreign 
deity.     But   under    our   modern    scientific   view 


290      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

the  universe  consists  of  a  myriad  worlds  cor- 
related with  each  other  in  a  vast  system  whose 
Deity  is  one  all-pervading  spirit  conducting 
its  affairs  by  laws  and  forces  which  are  inher- 
ent in  the  thing  itself;  and  to  ask  to  have  any 
event  in  it  made  different  from  what  it  would 
naturally  be,  is  apparently  to  ask  to  have  a 
new  force  introduced  into  it  and  to  have  all 
subsequent  events  in  it  made  different  from 
their  natural  course,  that  is,  means  an  alteration 
in  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe. 

Then,  assuming  the  possibility  of  such  an- 
swering so  far  as  Deity  is  concerned,  the  dif- 
ficulties are  equally  great  in  the  way  of  its 
being  of  any  real  benefit  to  man.  In  the  mad- 
dening maze  of  things  who,  as  a  finite  being,  can 
know  what  to  pray  for  as  his  real  good?  How 
true  are  the  words  that 

"We,  ignorant  of  ourselves, 
Beg  often  for  our  harms"; 

and  if,  to  prevent  our  being  cursed  by  the 
granting  of  our  requests,  we  add  at  the  end 
of  them  as  we  ought,  "Thy  will  and  not  mine 
be  done,"  why  should  we  not  rest  in  its  being 
done  at  the  start?  Why  be  to  all  the  trouble 
of  asking  our  own  will  to  be  done  only  to  wind 
up  with  asking  it  not  to  be? 

But  man  is  not  one  alone.     The  world  is  full 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER   291 

of  diverse  and  clashing  interests,  some  persons 
praying  for  one  thing  and  some  for  another, 
and  how  can  all  be  granted  their  requests,  how 
any  of  them  without  an  unfatherly  partiality? 
If  the  prayer  be  that  he  will  answer  the  most 
deserving,  what  does  it  imply  but  the  idea  that 
if  he  was  left  to  himself  he  would  not  do  so? 
Or  if  Dr.  Bushnell's  notion  be  accepted  that 
he  goes  by  the  will  of  the  majority,  what 
becomes  of  the  doctrine  that  prayer  is 
the  special  resource  of  the  weak  and  soli- 
tary? 

Men,  in  planning  their  business,  need  a  rea- 
sonable assurance  as  to  the  regularity  and  uni- 
formity of  nature's  laws  and  forces ;  but  if  this 
regularity  and  uniformity  are  liable  to  be  in- 
terfered with  in  some  emergency  by  the  grant- 
ing of  prayers,  so  they  cannot  be  depended 
upon,  how  great  to  the  rest  of  God's  children 
would  be  the  harm.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
that  after  the  weather  office  at  Washington  had 
made  up  its  indications  for  the  day  and  tele- 
graphed them  all  over  the  country,  some  humble 
Christian  in  Connecticut  who  wanted  rain,  or 
some  pious  farmer  in  Massachusetts  desiring 
sunshine,  should  be  able  to  get  his  wish  granted 
by  kneeling  down  to  "move  the  arm  which  moves 
the  world,"  what  would  the  indications  be  worth, 
— what  help  to  the  merchant  who  was  planning 


292      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

to  send  his  ship  to  sea,  or  even  to  the  Sunday- 
school  children  who  were  in  doubt  about  start- 
ing out  on  their  picnic? 

Then  as  regards  the  influence  of  such  peti- 
tions on  the  prayer-maker  himself, — if  always 
answered,  would  not  the  answering  as  the  easiest 
way  of  getting  things  done,  almost  inevitably 
slacken  his  own  exertions  and  in  the  end  make 
him  a  mere  parasite  on  Deity ;  and  if  answered 
only  occasionally,  would  not  the  omissions 
sooner  or  later  catch  him  at  a  time  when  his  ex- 
pectation of  an  answer  had  led  him  to  neglect 
the  precaution  he  otherwise  would  have  used, 
so  result  in  a  loss  that  would  offset  all  his  gains? 
A  few  years  ago,  while  a  party  of  children  were 
playing  on  the  banks  of  a  Western  river,  one  of 
them  fell  into  its  waters  and  had  just  lost  con- 
sciousness, when  he  was  seized  and  dragged  a- 
shore  by  a  noble  dog  which  came  bounding  along 
— life  was  not  yet  extinct  and,  if  his  playmates 
had  been  only  ordinary  unsanctified  little  boys 
and  girls,  they  would  at  once  have  obeyed  the 
prompting  of  their  natural  hearts  to  rush  off 
to  the  nearest  residence  for  human  help.  But 
they  were  all  nice  Sunday-school  children  taught 
to  look  to  God  for  help  in  emergencies,  so  they 
at  once  knelt  around  him  in  pra}-er  to  God  for 
his  restoration,  sentimentally  a  beautiful  sight, 
but  scientifically  the  worst  thing  possible,  for 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  293 

when  at  last  older  people  came,  it  was  too  late 
to  use  natural  means,  and  the  prayer's  answer 
was  a  dead  child.  A  similar  thing  has  hap- 
pened again  and  again  to  adult  devotees.  It 
was  experienced  in  Montreal,  a  few  years  ago, 
on  a  terrible  scale  when  its  more  ignorant 
Roman  Catholic  population  insisted  on  trusting 
to  the  intercession  of  their  priests  to  save  them 
from  the  smallpox,  rather  than  to  the  skill  of 
physicians ;  and  everywhere  the  disposition  to 
rely  on  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  sani- 
tary science  finds  in  its  way. 

It  needs  to  be  said,  also,  that  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  prayer  are  not  confined  to  peti- 
tions for  material  blessings,  but  are  equally 
strong  against  those  for  spiritual  good.  The 
unseen  world,  so  far  as  we  know  anything  about 
it,  is  not  a  separate  system  of  the  universe  but 
is  under  the  same  reign  of  law  and  order,  cause 
and  effect,  as  its  visible  counterpart.  To  the 
larger  view  it  is  just  as  much  an  interference 
with  the  established  divine  economy  to  pray 
for  a  descent  of  the  spirit  as  to  pray  for  a 
descent  of  rain,  just  as  demoralizing  to  a  man 
for  him  to  depend  on  the  gift  of  a  revival  to 
get  him  out  of  sin  as  on  the  gift  of  health  to 
get  him  out  of  disease,  or  of  a  miracle  to 
get  him  out  of  drowning;  and  taking  these  dif- 
ficulties   all    together,    it    is    no    wonder    that 


294      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

thoughtful  men  have  been  staggered  as  to  the 
value  of  supplicatory  prayer. 

What  has  science  to  say  on  the  other  side? 
It  begins  with  saying  simply  this, — that  man 
is  a  being  not  of  reason  and  understanding 
alone,  but  of  instinct  and  impulse  also,  and  that 
prayer,  its  asking  element  especially,  is  one  of 
the  great  primal  instincts  of  our  human  nature, 
one  of  those  things  like  eating  and  drinking, 
laughing  and  crying,  loving  and  living,  to  which 
lie  is  moved,  not  by  any  knowledge  of  their  use 
coming  from  without,  but  by  an  impulse  to  it 
coming  from  within.  Men  in  all  ages,  all  lands, 
all  religions,  have  prayed.  It  is  not  an  artificial 
act  imposed  on  the  world  by  bibles,  churches  and 
priests,  but  a  prompting  of  the  soul  out  of  which 
bibles,  churches  and  priests  arose;  and  though 
with  the  progress  of  civilization  and  the  smooth 
play  of  our  ordinary  life  it  may  seem  to  be  lost, 
yet  in  all  times  of  danger  and  distress,  when  the 
depths  of  our  being  are  thrown  open  and  that 
deeper  subconscious  self,  which  in  all  of  us  lies 
beneath  the  surface  conscious  one,  asserts  itself, 
it  reappears  as  strong  as  ever,  and  man  in  spite 
of  learning,  logic,  atheism,  sin,  breaks  forth 
into   prayer. 

What  does  this  mean?  Until  recently  it  was 
supposed  to  have  no  meaning  at  all,  or,  at  any 
rate,  as  against  the  deductions  of  reason  and 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  295 

the    understanding,    to    be    only    as    a    feather 
against  the  universe,  or  as  the  mind  of  a  brute 
against   the  mind  of  a  man.     But  within  the 
last  few  years   science,  under  the  guidance  of 
evolution,  has  been  studying  the  instincts  alike 
in  brutes  and  in  man,  and  it  finds  them  full  of 
profoundest    meaning,    finds     truths    in    them 
equaling  all   that  logic  and   learning  in   their 
farthest  bounds  have  ever  reached.     Man's  con- 
scious faculties,  his  memory,  judgment,  reason, 
imagination,  the  ones  that  of  old  were  thought 
to  be  so  godlike  and  whose  deliverances  received 
such  exclusive  attention,  are  now  beginning  to 
appear  as  only  the  outside  of  the  mind,  only  as 
the   sunlit  peaks   of  a  mountain,   as   compared 
with  the  immensity  of  the  earth  out  of  which 
they  spring  and  the  grandeur  of  the  heavens 
to  which  they  point.     Who  has  not  stood  under 
the  glittering  skies   some  clear  summer  night, 
and   set   his   eyes   wandering  and  his   thoughts 
leaping  and  his  soul  wondering,  first  among  the 
starry   orbs   within  his  sight,  then  beyond  our 
own  galaxy,  beyond  the  farthest  nebula,  beyond 
anything    the    telescope's    keen    vision    or    the 
camera's  patient  retina  has  ever  reached,  into 
that  vastness  of  space  where  the  flight  even  of 
thought    grows    weary,    and    not    been    thrilled 
with    the    mystery    which    in    spite    of    science, 
rather  all  the  more  through  science,  there  still 


296      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

is  in  our  physical  universe?  But  under  these 
later  investigations  we  are  finding  that  it  is  yet 
more  thrilling,  more  suggestive,  more  an  appeal 
to  wonder  and  worship  to  stand  on  the  shore  of 
our  own  souls  and  look  off  beyond  sense,  beyond 
reason,  beyond  memory,  beyond  any  faculty  of 
the  mind  we  are  conscious  of,  into  that  vast 
spiritual  realm  that  is  a  part  even  of  the 
humblest  human  being. 

The  instincts  belonging  to  this  realm  of  the 
unconscious  self  are  now  known  to  be  inherited 
habits, — faculties  as  old  as  our  race,  some  of 
them  as  old  as  life  itself.  They  began  as  con- 
scious acts  needed  for  food,  defense  and  the 
keeping  of  their  possessor  physically  alive. 
Thev  were  done  over  and  over  till  the  prompt- 
ing to  them  became  fixed  in  the  individual  doer, 
and  as  such  was  transmitted  to  its  offspring. 
Those  that  kept  them  up  survived  as  being  the 
fittest;  those  that  failed  to  keep  them  up 
perished  in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  no 
offspring,  as  being  the  unfit,  and  so  generation 
after  generation  they  have  come  down  to  our 
day  as  the  inborn  means  by  which  every  crea- 
ture is  enabled  to  live.  The  wild  goose  takes 
its  flight  north  or  south  with  each  changing 
season  because  it  is  the  descendant  of  geese 
which  among  the  many  that  tried  other  direc- 
tions and  so  were  lost,  found  these  to  be  the 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  297 

ones  by  which  to  get  their  requisite  food  and 
surroundings,  and  did  it  year  after  year,  and 
flock  after  flock,  till  it  became  a  habit  fixed  in 
their  blood.  The  newborn  babe  when  hungry 
or  hurt  or  in  danger,  cries  out  for  its  mother 
to  feed  it  and  save  it,  because  it  is  the  descend- 
ant of  babes  who,  ages  ago,  out  in  their  wilder- 
ness home,  found  such  crying  to  be  the  surest 
way  of  attracting  the  mother's  attention,  the 
ones  who  did  not  so  cry  being  the  ones  who 
oftenest  perished.  Why  does  the  man  who 
falls  into  the  water,  or  into  danger  of  any 
kind,  instinctively  cry  out  for  human  help, 
even  when  no  human  help  is  in  sight?  It 
is  because  men  in  past  ages,  placed  in  like 
circumstances,  have  found  that  the  cry  as 
a  whole,  though  amid  many  disappointments, 
has  been  of  some  avail  in  bringing  them 
assistance.  So  with  their  cries  to  God,  even 
when  no  God  is  seen  or  believed  in.  They 
are  the  voices  of  the  race ;  and  they  are  uttered 
— there  is  and  can  be  no  other  explanation 
— because  the  race  amid  a  myriad  disappoint- 
ments has  found  that  somehow  they  had  a 
saving  power,  and  because  those  parts  of  the 
race  which  uttered  them  the  most,  are  the  ones 
that  amid  a  myriad  dangers  have  pulled 
through. 

The  praying  which  has  thus  come  down  to  us 


298      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

as  an  instinct  of  the  race,  is  of  course  based  on 
the  old  idea  of  its  gaining  an  outside  super- 
natural help,  and  as  such  it  has  to  be  held,  as  I 
have  shown,  in  direct  opposition  alike  to  the 
science  and  religion  of  our  day.  But  now  ad- 
mitting this,  the  question  further  arises,  is  this 
idea  absolutely  essential  to  prayer,  or  is  it 
possible  to  drop  it  so  as  to  harmonize  the  two 
things  and  to  still  retain  its  real  life?  What  is 
the  essential  thing  about  prayer  to  God?  Not 
surely  the  formal  asking  of  him  for  a  blessing ; 
not  the  idea  of  its  coming  from  without  nature ; 
not  the  idea  that  it  must  be  entirely  a  gift.  It 
is  simply  a  desire  for  it  directed  towards  him, 
wherever  he  is,  and  to  have  it  come  through 
him  by  whatever  means.  As  the  familiar  hymn 
expresses  it, — 

"Prayer  is  the  soul's  sincere  desire 
Uttered  or  unexpressed, 
The  motion  of  a  hidden  fire 
That  trembles  in  the  breast." 

And  as  Coleridge  has  said, — 

"Ere  on  my  bed  my  limbs  I  lay 
It  hath  not  been  my  use  to  pray 
With  moving  lips  or  bended  knees, 
But   silently   by  slow  degrees, 
My  spirit  I  to  love  compose 
In  humble  trust  my  eyelids  close 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER   299 

With  reverential  resignation, 
No  wish  concerned,  no  thought  expressed, 

Only  a  sense  of  supplication, 
A  sense  o'er  all  my  soul  impressed 
That  I  am  weak,  yet  not  unblessed, 
Since  in  me,  round  me,  everywhere 
Eternal  strength  and  wisdom  are." 

And  this  desire,  this  inward  sense  of  supplica- 
tion, is  what  underneath  all  its  supernaturalism 
has  existed  in  all  ages  and  all  lands  as  the  real 
heart  of  prayer,  this  with  all  its  supernat- 
uralism stripped  off  that  may  still  remain  as 
strong  a  light  as  ever. 

The  element,  however,  thus  found  in  it  is  not 
only  reconcilable  with  reason  and  science,  but 
is  demanded  by  them  everywhere  as  one  of  the 
most  vital  elements  of  all  success.  Desire,  ambi- 
tion, the  earnest  craving  for  a  thing  "uttered 
or  unexpressed,"  this  is  the  primal  source  of  all 
getting,  this  the  thing  in  the  farmer,  the 
mechanic,  the  artist,  the  scholar,  the  Christian, 
without  which  labor,  acquaintance  with  the  laws 
and  forces  of  nature,  preaching,  the  faculty  of 
reason,  and  belief  in  right,  truth  and  God,  are 
of  but  little  use.  A  man  may  be  equipped  with 
everything  else,  a  good  body,  keen  senses,  a 
brilliant  mind,  and  a  noble  soul ;  but,  if  he  has 
no  desires  for  anything,  no  inward  heart  of 
prayer   for   it,   nothing  will   ever  be   attained. 


300      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

It  is  desire,  not  in  the  language  of  prayer- 
meetings  alone,  but  of  all  science,  which  "moves 
the  arm  which  moves  the  world."  The  whole 
universe  is  divided  between  this  element  of 
prayer  on  the  one  side,  and  its  answer  on  the 
other.  Every  planet  and  every  atom  asks  for 
companionship;  every  blade  of  grass  for  the 
sunshine,  every  flower  for  the  dew,  every  insect 
for  its  food,  every  animal  for  growth  and  hap- 
piness, every  faculty  of  our  being  for  the  means 
of  life;  and  when  man  voices  his  asking  in  the 
words  of  prayer,  instead  of  its  being  unwar- 
ranted by  anything  which  science  can  find  in 
nature,  it  is  only  his  part  of  a  grand  litany  in 
which  every  living  thing  from  animalcule  to 
angel,  joins,  and  whose  answer  God  is  giving  in 
every^  thread  of  gravity,  every  drop  of  dew, 
every  ray  of  sunshine,  every  throb  of  love, 
every  word  of  truth,  every  resurrection  of 
springtime  and  every  raising  him  to  himself. 

But  still,  it  may  be  said,  admitting  all  this, 
admitting  that  the  essence  of  prayer  is  desire 
and  as  such  is  rational,  why  not  call  it  desire? 
Why  not  cherish  and  nourish  it  like  all  other 
desires,  with  its  own  appropriate  food?  Why 
not  direct  it  like  all  other  desires,  to  its  own 
special  objects, — the  desire  for  food  to  food, 
the  desire  of  truth  to  truth,  the  desire  for  good- 
ness to  what  is  good?     Why  call  it  a  prayer 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER   301 

and  direct  it  to  a  God?  The  question  is 
a  fair  one,  is  the  last  link  in  the  chain  of  a 
prayer's  logic,  often,  however,  left  unforged ; 
and  is  capable,  I  believe,  of  a  full  scientific 
answer. 

How  is  it  that  our  desires  are  nourished, 
strengthened  and  directed  to  their  appropriate 
objects?  One  way  is  by  their  use,  by  the  culti- 
vation of  those  special  faculties  which  lead  to 
them,  and  by  the  food  for  them  which  exists 
naturally  in  those  objects  themselves.  For 
instance,  if  a  man  wants  more  truth,  he  turns 
his  desires  for  it  in  that  direction,  cultivates 
his  intellectual  faculties,  and  uses  each  item  of 
truth  which  is  attained,  as  the  food  with  which 
to  nourish  his  desire  for  more.  But  this  is  only 
a  part  of  the  process.  Another  thing  needed 
is  quickening,  inspiration,  enlightenment,  and 
the  enlarging,  refining  and  uplifting  of  the 
whole  soul.  We  know  how  it  is  with  the  mind, 
know  how  much  brighter,  quicker,  more  eager 
for  truth,  and  more  capable  of  its  discernment 
it  is  at  one  time  than  at  others.  Why?  Not  be- 
cause the  mind  itself  is  changed  either  as  to  its 
desires  or  faculties ;  but  because  it  is  inspired, 
touched  somehow  by  an  influence  from  the  out- 
side which  is  breathed  into  itself.  So  with  all 
our  faculties,  even  down  to  our  muscles  and 
nerves ;  their  strength  and  capacity  depend  not 


302      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

on  themselves  alone,  but  on  something  which 
operates  upon  them  from  without,  almost  as 
much  as  the  organ's  music  does  on  the  bellows' 
breath.  What  is  the  source  of  this  quickening? 
What  but  that  great  Divine  Spirit  which  is  all 
around  us,  in  matter,  in  nature,  in  food,  in  love, 
in  truth,  in  everything,  that  wonderful  some- 
thing whose  existence  no  science  can  deny,  which 
is  recognized  by  Spencer  and  Darwin  as  much 
as  Jesus  and  Paul,  and  in  which  philosophy  and 
religion  alike  say  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being,  that  breath  which  makes  the  great  organ 
of  the  universe  alive  with  music,  and  that 
radiance  which  is 

"The  master  light  of  all  our  seeing 
The  fountain  light  of  all  our  day." 

And  how  are  we  to  draw  it  from  this  great  foun- 
tain and  make  it  available  for  our  individual 
enlightenment  and  inspiration?  How  conscious- 
ly, but  through  prayer?  We  know  how  it  is  with 
the  illuminating  gas  of  our  cities.  Out  from  its 
great  reservoir  there  is  a  network  of  pipes  going 
to  every  house,  some  larger  and  same  smaller, 
some  clear  and  some  choked  with  dust,  and 
ample  pressure  to  send  it  into  every  cellar  and 
attic  as  well  as  every  parlor.  But  this  alone  is 
not  enough.  To  have  it  illumine,  the  stop-cock 
at  the  end  of  the  pipe  must  be  turned  and  the 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  303 

match  applied.  And  all  this  is  voluntary. 
The  citizen  can  live  without  it,  grope  around 
with  a  taper,  or  by  the  aid  of  his  other  senses 
do  some  things  in  the  dark.  But  when  the  stop 
is  turned  and  the  match  applied,  what  an  in- 
spiration it  is  !  How  much  better  he  can  see 
to  work,  to  eat,  to  read,  to  play,  to  do  every- 
thing! And  to  use  it  thus  who  will  say  it  is  a 
mere  superstition?  Who  that  we  might  as  well 
direct  our  desire  for  light  at  once  to  the  light, 
rather  than  use  the  network  of  gas  pipes? 
Who  say  that  the  whole  thing  is  not  a  grand 
outcome  of  true  science?  So  with  prayer. 
There  is  a  spiritual  network  of  communion 
between  our  souls  and  the  great  illuminating 
Light  of  the  universe,  something  which  runs  to 
every  race  and  every  man ;  and  prayer  is  the 
stop-cock  with  which  to  turn  it  on.  We  can 
live  without  it,  can  gratify  many  of  our  desires 
by  directing  them  right  to  food,  love,  truth  and 
goodness  themselves,  can  grope  around  with  our 
ordinary  senses  and  do  some  work.  But  to 
turn  on  the  divine  light,  to  have  our  whole 
being  filled  with  its  radiance, — who  cannot  see 
how  philosophical  it  is  that  it  should  help  us 
the  better  to  eat,  read,  work,  play,  do  every- 
thing? Who  not  see  that  desire  expressed  in 
this  way  may  be  certainly  not  less  effective  than 
that  which  goes  for  them  directly,  in  securing 


304      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

us  food,  truth,  love  and  goodness,  all,  too,  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  laws  alike  of  material 
and  human  nature? 

Or  take  another  analogy,  that  of  air.  It  is 
not  muscle  or  nerve  or  brain  or  bone  or  soul  or 
any  part  of  man  himself.  It  cannot  be  used 
directly  to  run  with,  or  read  with,  or  see  with, 
or  work  with,  or  love  with;  and  though  it  is  all 
around  us,  a  person  ignorant  of  its  real  prop- 
erties, who  wished  for  help  in  his  pursuits, 
might  well  sneer  at  its  value.  But  we  all  of  us 
know  practically  that  it  is  to  us  the  very  breath 
of  life;  that  muscle,  nerve,  bone,  brain,  every- 
thing depend  on  it  for  their  efficiency;  that,  if 
a  man  desires  to  run,  read,  see,  work,  love  or  do 
anything,  he  must  first  of  all  desire  air;  and 
that  though  the  lowest  animals,  the  amoeba, 
rhizopod  and  sponge,  and  even  the  embryo 
child,  may  exist  without  any  lungs  for  it,  yet 
that  they  are  developed  and  increase  just  as  we 
go  up  the  scale  of  being,  and  that  they  reach 
their  full  evolution  only  in  perfect  man.  So 
with  prayer.  It  is  indeed  "the  Christian's  vital 
breath" ;  is  the  process  by  which  the  soul  takes 
in  the  spiritual  atmosphere  that  is  all  around  it. 
The  inspiration  it  gives  is  felt  in  our  study, 
work,  amusement,  everything  we  do,  giving  an 
answer  to  our  desires  for  them  so,  as  no  direct 
reaching  out  of  our  faculties  to  them  could. 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  305 

And  though  a  man  may  get  along  without  it  to 
some  extent,  it  is  only  as  the  rhizopod  and 
sponge,  without  breathing,  and,  as  we  mount 
up  into  science  and  civilization,  we  shall  evolve 
not  out  of  it,  but  like  the  physical  man,  into  its 
larger,  deeper,  fuller  use. 

And  now,  friends,  have  I  not  given  you  a 
good,  honest,  rational  and  scientific  justification 
of  prayer,  recognized  all  its  difficulties  and  in- 
congruities, but  met  them  with  laws  and  facts 
en  the  other  side  that  are  equally  solid  and  in- 
surmountable, shown  that  the  only  thing  needed 
to  make  it  harmonize  with  the  evolution  of  the 
outward  world  is  the  parallel  evolutions  of  its 
own  intrinsic  meaning,  and  found  a  place  for 
it  alike  in  our  deepest  instincts  and  our  loftiest 
and  broadest  philosophy?  It  is  thus,  as  I 
understand,  which  is  in  the  true  line  of  evo- 
lution, not  to  root  up  and  tear  out  and  throw 
away  the  old  growths  of  the  world  anywhere, 
but  to  throw  off  their  old  husks,  unfold  them 
into  richer  and  diviner  meanings,  and  reap  from 
them  new  blossoms  and  new  fruit.  And,  meet- 
ing together  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  as  pro- 
gressives, liberals  and  evolutionists,  instead  of 
relaxing  or  giving  up  prayer,  shall  we  not  on 
this  very  ground,  lift  up  our  common  wants  all 
the  more  to  him  who  is  the  God  alike  of  science 
and  Scripture,  and  who,  as  one  result  of  this 


306     THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

very  evolution,  has  enabled  us  to  proclaim  "Thy 
servant,  Lord,  hath  found  it  in  his  heart  to 
pray." 

"For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If  having  hands  they  lift  them  not  in  prayer 
Both    for    themselves    and    those    who    call    them 

friends, 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

And  the  instinct  in  the  human  soul  which 
prompts  it  with  life's  changing  seasons  to  take 
its  flight  in  the  direction  of  the  spirit  world, 
and  in  God's  child,  when  hungry  or  hurt  or  in 
danger,  to  cry  out  to  him  for  help,  must  have 
had  a  similar  origin.  Men  pray  because  they 
are  the  descendants  of  ancestors  who  somehow 
found  praying  a  help  to  them  in  keeping  alive, 
they  being  the  ones  naturally  who  would  have 
children  to  transmit  it  to,  so  that  at  last  it 
became  fixed  in  their  race,  while  the  ones  who 
did  not  use  this  means  of  help  would  be  the  ones 
naturally  to  die  out  and  to  leave  no  descendants. 
There  is  no  other  way  of  accounting  for  its 
origin,  and  this  does  account  for  it  perfectly. 
It  is  what  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  and 
survival  of  the  fittest  means,  the  survival  not 
only  of  species,  but  of  habits,  forms,  faculties, 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  307 

morals,  tastes,  religions,  everything  in  him  which 
has  been  of  use  for  safety  and  sustenance.  Its 
survival  is  the  best  possible  proof  that  it  has 
been  of  such  use.  And  to  apply  it  to  prayer 
is  not  forcing  its  meaning,  not  making  an  ar- 
gument of  it  which  is  unnatural  and  far-fetched, 
but  is  simply  coordinating  it  with  its  use  in 
relation  to  all  the  rest  of  our  nature  and  all 
through  the  organic  world. 

What  though  its  help  in  continuing  life,  as 
compared  with  that  of  the  strong  muscle  and 
the  active  brain,  may  have  been  small.  Nature 
is  full  of  instances,  as  Darwin  has  pointed  out, 
where  other  things  as  slight  as  this,  an  extra 
feather  in  the  wing,  or  finer  color  in  the  feather, 
a  sweeter  tone  in  the  voice,  an  upward  look  in 
the  eye — have  proved  the  very  additions  needed 
to  enable  their  possessors  to  come  off  as  victors 
over  their  competitors  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence,— shows  us  the  lily  and  the  dove  as 
survivors  of  the  paleoron  and  the  pterodactyle, 
shows  us  even  in  human  history,  Greek  swords 
edged  with  patriot  love,  and  Cromwellian 
soldiers  weaponed  with  a  psalm,  as  more  than  a 
match  for  Persian  hosts  and  roj^al  guns ;  and 
it  well  may  have  been  that  the  white  wing  of 
prayer,  the  gentle  tone  of  entreaty,  the  upward 
look    of   supplication,    devotion's    lily    and    re- 


308      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

ligion's  dove,  have  proved  of  like  help  in  secur- 
ing a  like  survival  in  the  case  of  man. 

It  is  this,  as  it  seems  to  me,  that  is  the  deeper, 
sweeter,  more  trustworthy  voice  of  science  with 
regard  to  prayer.  It  does  not  directly  refute 
the  objections  that  are  urged  against  it  by  its 
other  voice,  does  not  present  special  instances 
here  and  there  of  its  being  answered,  but  it 
goes  back  of  them  all  and  shows  the  whole 
human  race  as  a  proof  of  its  value,  shows  not 
by  a  long  chain  of  reasoning  but  by  a  logic 
which  has  only  one  link,  the  shortest,  perhaps, 
in  all  the  realm  of  dialectics,  that  the  best  proof 
of  its  being  answered  is  its  being  asked.  Talk 
of  giving  it  up  now  as  passed,  and  as  having 
no  standing  place  in  science !  Why  science  has 
only  just  reached  out  to  the  realm  where  its 
roots  really  are,  has  just  become  large  enough 
itself  to  afford  it  room.  It  finds  its  seat  to  be 
in  the  oldest  part  of  our  nature,  in  that  which 
goes  down  through  all  the  strata  of  conscious 
life  to  its  primal  fires,  not  likely,  therefore,  to 
be  blown  away  by  any  surface  storms.  With 
Emerson  it  says, — 

"The  litanies  of  nations  came 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below, — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe." 


THE  WARRANT  OF  PRAYER  309 

And  whatever  may  be  the  difficulties  of  the  mind 
and  the  understanding  as  to  its  answers,  it 
would  have  us  keep  up  its  practice  for  the  very 
reason  given  in  the  old  Scripture  words  that  I 
have  taken  as  a  text,  because  "Thy  servant 
Lord  hath  found  in  his  heart  to  pray." 


XV 


THE  NEW  MEANING  AND  POSITION  OF 
WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION 

Doubts  about  prayer  are  strongly  felt  in  our 
day,  but  the  problem  of  work,  so  often  set  up  as 
the  easy  alternative  of  prayer,  is  one  which  to 
a  vast  number  of  people  in  our  time  is  infinitely 
greater  and  more  perplexing,  and  more  in  need 
of  light.  The  difficulties  connected  with  prayer 
are  in  regard  to  its  relations  with  the  material 
order  of  the  universe,  how  to  adjust  it  to  the 
reign  of  law,  to  the  idea  of  God  as  a  perfect 
Creator,  and  to  the  growth  and  use  of  man's 
scientific  and  rational  powers,  and  are  largely 
theoretical.  The  difficulties  connected  with 
work  are  in  regard  to  its  relations  with  the 
world's  moral  economy,  how  to  adjust  to  the 
reign  of  love,  to  the  idea  of  God  as  a  con- 
siderate Father,  and  to  the  growth  and  use  of 
man's  moral  and  spiritual  faculties,  and  are  in- 
tensely practical.  Whether  or  not  to  pray  is 
a  matter  of  free  choice,  is  what  comes  up  for 

decision  only  now  and  then  in  some  quiet  hour 
310 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION       311 

of  meditation  or  some  rare  emergency  of  peril, 
and  is  often  only  a  question  of  pleasant 
curiosity.  Whether  or  not  to  work  is  a  matter 
where  the  choice  is  necessity;  is  what  has  to  be 
answered  afresh  every  day  and  every  hour,  and 
is  a  question  of  life  or  death.  A  person  may  be 
an  infidel  with  regard  to  prayer,  may  never 
bend  the  knee  at  home  for  its  blessings,  or  join 
with  others  at  church  in  asking  for  its  objects, 
and  his  penalty  is  only  the  loss  of  some  spiritual 
good  now,  or  the  threat  of  some  physical  woe 
in  the  far-off  future ;  but  let  him  be  an  un- 
believer with  regard  to  work,  refuse  to  bend  his 
back  to  it  in  solitude,  or  ask  for  it  with  others 
in  society,  and  instantly  its  penalty  comes  in 
hunger,  suffering  and  death.  And  where  there 
is  one  man  or  woman  who  is  wrestling  with  the 
knotty  points  of  prayer  as  a  means  of  obtain- 
ing good,  there  are  millions  who  are  being 
crushed  in  their  struggle  with  work  as  a  means 
of  getting  from  God  the  things  they  need.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  a  friend  said  to  me:  "What 
the  most  of  us  in  the  Christian  Church  and  every 
other  want  to  drop  is  not  our  prayers,  but  our 
work;  what  we  want  justified  by  religion,  not  so 
much  our  litanies  as  our  labors."  Is  there  any 
light  which  modern  science  can  bring  to  bear 
on  this  problem,  any  new  philosophy  which 
better  than  the  old  ones  can  help  us  to  solve  its 


312      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

meaning  and  to  bear  its  burdens?  It  is  a 
question  whose  religious  significance  no  one  can 
deny.  And  so,  what  I  did  last  Sunday  for 
prayer  I  want  now  to  do  for  work,  discuss  it  in 
the  light  of  reason  and  from  the  standpoint  of 
evolution. 

We  all  know  the  explanation  which  the  old 
Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  theologies  based 
upon  them,  give  of  work.  It  is  the  penalty  of 
sin,  is  the  result  of  the  curse  pronounced  on  our 
first  parents  because  they  had  eaten  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  It  is  an 
idea  which  theoretically  has  been  given  up. 
Labor  is  proclaimed  to  be  a  blessing  rather  than 
a  curse.  The  world  is  full  of  sentimental 
orations  on  its  dignity  and  divinity.  The 
garlands  of  poetry  have  been  wreathed  around 
it;  and  it  has  been  advocated  as  the  true  form 
of  prayer,  "Orare  est  laborare."  Yet  by 
myriads  of  God's  creatures  it  is  still  practically 
regarded  as  a  curse.  Its  associations  are  those 
of  drudgery,  dirt  and  disagreeableness.  It 
takes  them  away  from  the  playground,  the 
restful  couch  and  the  atmosphere  of  freedom, 
and  gives  them  the  rough  field,  the  dark  factory, 
the  narrow  counting-room  and  the  tumultuous 
sea.  Hard  task-masters,  soulless  corporations 
and  the  loud  voice  of  arbitrary  command  are 
its    embodiments ;     and     it    leaves     them    with 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION       313 

aching  muscles,  sensibilities  dulled  to  poetry, 
beauty,  truth  and  all  the  high  things  of  the 
world,  and  with  a  pittance  of  mercenary  coin. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  they  fail  to  see  in  it  a 
blessing;  any  wonder  that  the  reasons  against 
it  from  the  moral  standpoint  seem  to  them  even 
stronger  than  those  against  prayer  from  the 
standpoint  of  nature?  A  lady  of  my  acquaint- 
ance who  had  been  very  much  impressed  with 
the  fact  that  her  horse  was  a  great  deal  more 
eager  and  spirited  in  getting  back  to  his  stable 
than  in  going  from  it,  and  who  thought  that 
after  standing  still  all  night  and  perhaps  for 
days  he  ought  to  be  glad  of  the  chance  to  ex- 
ercise himself  in  a  little  carriage-pulling,  asked 
the  hostler  one  day  whether  they  all  of  them  had 
this  reluctance  to  labor,  or  whether  it  was  a 
peculiarity  of  her  beast.  "Well,"  said  he,  with 
the  Yankee  art  of  putting  things  in  the  aptest 
way,  "they  don't  none  of  them  go  out  laughing 
when  they  are  hitched  up."  So  with  us  human 
beasts  of  burden ;  it  matters  not  how  senti- 
mentally we  may  talk  about  work,  and  how 
delightful  it  ought  to  be  to  engage  in  it,  when 
the  harness  is  actually  put  on,  we  don't  any  of 
us  go  out  "laughing"  to  its  wagon-pulling. 
And  yet  with  one  part  of  our  nature  regarding 
it  as  a  curse  and  set  so  strongly  against  it,  it 
is  to  be  recognized  here  the  same  as  with  regard 


314      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

to  prayer,  that  there  is  another  part  of  us  which 
instinctively  regards  it  as  a  blessing,  and  which 
in  all  ages,  the  same  as  with  prayer,  has  drawn 
us  towards  it.  Man  is  naturally  a  working 
animal.  Mingled  with  the  strong  leash  of 
necessity  which  is  ever  driving  him  unwilling  to 
his  toil,  is  the  gentler  cord  of  love  for  it,  which 
is  ever  leading  him  gladly  to  its  burdens.  One 
of  the  chief  things  which  distinguishes  him  from 
the  brutes  is  the  fact  that  over  and  above 
getting  enough  to  satisfy  his  wants  at  their 
present  standpoint,  he  has  a  little  bit  of  some- 
thing in  his  nature  which  prompts  him  to  put 
forth  an  extra  blow  or  two,  for  other  wants  not 
yet  wholly  developed.  It  is  on  this  residuum 
of  the  attractive  over  the  repulsive  in  work 
stored  up  within,  that  is  built  all  our  wealth,  all 
our  civilization,  all  our  progress,  this  that  is 
the  source  of  that  much  abused  thing,  capital. 
If  labor  was  wholly  or  preponderatingly  a 
curse,  if  it  did  not  have  a  balance  of  blessing  on 
its  side,  it  would  be  impossible  to  account  for 
the  habit  of  it  in  our  race,  any  more  than  for 
that  of  prayer,  or  indeed  for  the  race  itself. 
The  working  members  of  the  human  family  have 
survived  and  have  transmitted  their  instinct  for 
it  to  their  descendants,  over  the  non-working 
ones,  on  precisely  the  same  principle  as  that  on 
which  the  praying  members  have  survived  and 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION       315 

transmitted  theirs,  the  principle  that  it  is  the 
fittest,  that  is,  that  it  gave  them  an  advantage 
in  the  struggle  for  life  over  those  who  worked 
less,  or  not  at  all.  And  the  burdens,  the 
drudgeries  and  the  injustices  of  labor,  the 
things  connected  with  it  which  apparently 
drag  men  down,  blunt  their  sensibilities  to 
higher  things  and  rank  them  with  the  brutes, 
are  an  argument  against  its  blessedness  only  in 
the  same  way,  and  to  the  same  extent,  that 
the  superstitions  and  falsities  connected  with 
prayer  are  an  argument  against  that, — to  the 
extent  of  its  outside  drapery  and  to  that  alone. 

Admitting  now  in  this  general  way  that  labor 
cannot  be  a  penalty  and  a  curse,  any  more  than 
prayer,  or  any  other  instinct  can  a  folly  and 
superstition,  we  want  next  to  get  at  its  positive 
side,  to  learn  its  place  and  meaning  and  what  it 
is  for  in  the  economy  of  nature,  and  to  ask  how 
it  can  be  freed  from  its  darker  features. 

Its  object,  as  commonly  understood,  is  to  get 
its  doer  the  means  of  life, — food,  clothing  and 
shelter  first,  and  then  after  these,  amusement, 
beauty,  truth,  religion,  all  those  which  go  to 
supply  his  higher  nature.  Man,  and  not  man 
alone,  but  all  other  creatures,  animal  and  vege- 
table, are  beings  endowed  with  wants,  beings 
that,  unlike  inanimate  things,  cannot  exist  by 
virtue  of  what  is  in  themselves  alone,  but  are 


316      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

obliged  to  reach  out  for  other  things  on  which 
to  live,  the  lowest  for  bare  soil,  air  and  light, 
and  each  above  these  in  larger  and  larger  circles, 
and  for  finer  and  finer  things,  till  we  come  to  man 
reaching  out  for  his  through  all  worlds  and  up 
to  all  heights.     It  is  around  these  wants,  these 
appetites,  aspirations  and  desires,  and  with  ref- 
erence to  their  supply,  that  all  the  rest  of  our 
organization,  our  limbs,  senses,  instincts,  intel- 
lectual faculties  and  spiritual  powers,  are  built 
up ;  these  which  explain  why  the  flower  has  its 
petals,  the  tree  its  roots,  the  insect  its  feet,  the 
bird   its    wings,   the   tiger   his   claws    and   man 
his   hands,   his   eyes,  his   reason   and   his   soul. 
They  are  not  shaped  by  chance  or  with  refer- 
ence  to   some   preconceived  ideal,  but   only   as 
the  best  practical  apparatus  to  supply  wants; 
and    it    is    their    use    for    this    purpose    which 
constitutes    work, — this    which    gives    us    phil- 
osophically its  meaning  and  place  in  the  order 
of    nature.     Instead    of    its    being    an    after- 
thought of  the  Creator,  a  penalty  of  sin  sug- 
gested  to   him  by   man's   disobedience,   it  is    a 
primitive    and    fundamental    principle    of    the 
animate  world,  entering  into  its  very  plan.     To 
live  is  to  labor;  to  have  faculties  and  powers, 
to  work.     And  instead  of  its   being  an  ugly, 
clumsy    thing,     the    doing    ourselves    because 
nature  had  no  skill  to  do  for  us,  there  is  nothing 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION      317 

in  all  its  round  which  is  more  ingenious  and 
beautiful  than  the  machinery  of  which  it  is  a 
part.  On  the  one  side  are  wants,  on  the  other 
the  things  wanted.  The  only  way  in  which 
there  can  be  life  is  by  having  the  one  get  the 
other.  The  only  way  in  which  this  getting  be 
done,  by  the  creation  and  use  of  various  facul- 
ties and  powers ;  and  the  getting  itself, — this  is 
work.  Wants  are  the  engine  that  moves  the 
world;  its  movement  is  labor,  and  its  result, 
reaching  the  means  of  life. 

But  this  is  only  the  near,  immediate  object 
of  labor.  The  question  now  comes,  What  is  the 
object  of  this  object?  What  the  result  that 
is  sought  for  by  our  having  and  using  the  means 
of  life?  To  gratify  wants  alone,  and  these  so 
largely  the  wants  of  food  and  drink,  even  with 
living  as  their  outcome,  would  be  a  very  meager 
reason,  if  this  were  the  whole,  for  all  the  hard- 
ship, pain,  weariness  and  wear  that  work  every- 
where involves.  The  things  labored  for,  the 
meat  and  drink,  the  clothing,  the  houses,  the 
books,  the  nationalities,  the  civilizations  and 
even  the  religions,  that  are  reached  with  such 
toils,  groans  and  tears,  perish  in  the  using,  die 
in  making  live ;  and  the  animals,  the  men  and 
the  races  which  use  them,  in  a  little  while  longer 
they  perish,  too ;  and  then  the  whole  thing,  all 
the  round  of  labor  has  to  be  gone  through  with 


318      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

again  to  supply  a  new  set  of  creatures  destined 
in  their  turn  likewise  to  perish.  It  seems  out- 
wardly a  realization  of  the  old  classic  stories 
of  Sisyphus  rolling  forever  the  stone  up  the 
hill,  only  to  have  it  roll  down  again,  and  Tan- 
talus forever  pouring  water  into  sieves  that  im- 
mediately let  it  out  again.  And  it  is  this  ap- 
parent uselessness  of  labor  that  is  the  hardest 
of  all  its  burdens,  this  which  makes  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  it  has  any  ulterior  object  be- 
yond that  of  mere  present  living,  one  of  tre- 
mendous practical  importance. 

It  is  a  question  to  which  evolution  gives  a 
complete  and  triumphant  answer.  It  shows 
first,  that  the  object  of  labor  beyond  the  build- 
ing up  of  the  individual,  is  the  building  up  of 
the  race.  The  thing  labored  for  does  indeed 
perish  in  its  use,  but  in  perishing  it  feeds  the 
laborer,  gives  him  more  strength  and  larger 
wants,  which  in  their  turn  labor  for  other 
things ;  and  thus  the  process  goes  on  back  and 
forth,  the  labor  itself  aiding  in  the  growth  till 
the  individual  reaches  his  completeness ;  and 
then,  though  he  dies,  there  is  a  subtle  essence 
out  of  his  growth  which  goes  into  his  stock 
like  that  of  the  leaves  into  a  tree,  making  that 
the  larger  and  richer,  and  his  offspring  the 
more  capable ;  and  so  on  from  generation  to 
generation    and    from    age   to    age.     We   have 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION       319 

in  our  blood  to-day  the  labors  of  the  first  man, 
yea,  and  of  the  first  animal,  that  ever  toiled ; 
our  strength,  our  capacity  for  labor,  our  hu- 
manity, is  a  fruit  to  which  all  the  myriads  be- 
fore us  who  have  ever  delved  with  muscle,  mind 
and  soul  have  contributed  each  a  part;  and 
when  the  perfect  man  stands  on  earth,  it  will 
be  on  the  shoulders,  through  all  the  ages,  of  all 
the  earth's  toil. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  growing  man  must  have 
a  growing  environment,  must  have  this  evolved 
side  by  side  with  himself.  It  is  a  work  which 
nature  does  in  part,  her  forces  and  her  laws 
which  toil  on  its  outward  structure,  giving  us, 
age  after  age,  richer  soils,  fairer  skies  and 
more  harmonious  elements.  But,  beyond  these, 
society,  government,  letters,  science,  and  re- 
ligion, all  that  goes  to  make  civilization  is 
needed ;  and  it  is  this  finer  environment  that 
man's  work  helps  to  build  up.  Its  immediate 
products,  houses,  temples,  furniture,  books, 
paintings,  statues,  and  the  special  forms  of 
government,  science  and  religion  do  indeed  per- 
ish with  their  use,  equally  with  our  food  and 
drink;  but  out  of  them  a  subtle  essence  like 
that  from  our  food,  remains  and  goes  to  nour- 
ish the  great  structure  of  society  and  of  the 
universe.  The  stone  of  Sisyphus  never  rolls 
back  quite  to  the  foot  of  the  hill;  the  waters 


320      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

of  Tantalus  never  leak  wholly  out  of  the  sieve. 
The  civilization  of  to-day  is  the  result  of  its 
long  rolling  and  pouring;  and  when  it  is  com- 
plete, when  a  perfect  world  shall  be  the  en- 
vironment of  a  perfect  humanity,  in  it  will  be 
the  labor,  eternal  as  itself,  of  every  man  who 
has  ever  dug  a  sod,  driven  a  nail  or  thought  a 
truth. 

And  is  evolution  here  the  end  of  labor? 
With  a  perfect  humanity  and  a  perfect  world 
accomplished  by  it,  is  it  then  to  come  to  a 
stand,  then  to  see  this  mightier  structure  per- 
ish? No;  the  same  principle  which  demands 
an  object  for  labor  beyond  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual, demands  an  object  for  it  be}^ond  the 
life  of  nature  and  the  race.  What  can  this  be 
but  the  growth  out  of  them  of  a  spirit  world, 
of  spiritual  beings  and  of  endless  progress? 
The  labors  of  time,  not  the  immaterial  ones 
alone,  but  the  humblest  ones  of  the  muscle  and 
the  limb,  are  to  reach  over  into  eternity.  Min- 
gled with  their  stains  of  filth  and  dirt  are  the 
glitter  of  spiritual  splendors ;  and  rooted  in 
the  noisy  factory  and  the  darksome  mine  they 
are  to  blossom  and  fruit  in  the  music  of  angel 
choirs  and  the  light  of  the  everlasting  day. 

Who  now  will  say  that  under  evolution,  work 
as  well  as  prayer  does  not  have  a  meaning  and 
position  such  as  even  under  poetry  and  religion 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION      321 

it  never  did  before?  The  old  theology  made 
the  world  a  prison  in  which  work  was  inflicted 
as  a  punishment.  Political  economy  makes  it 
a  factory  where  it  is  paid  for  on  the  wage  sys- 
tem of  so  much  meat  and  drink.  But  under 
this  new  philosophy  it  becomes  a  great  co- 
operative establishment  where  every  man, 
woman  and  child  is  a  part  owner  and  has  his 
proportionate  share  of  the  proceeds.  And 
who  does  not  know  the  new  zest  which  is  given 
to  toil  when  the  toiler  feels  that  its  object  is 
his  own?  Where  is  the  carpenter  who  does  not 
enjoy  building  a  house  when  he  himself  is  to 
have  it  and  live  in  it,  as  he  never  does  when  his 
toil  on  it  is  to  be  paid  for  in  money ;  where  the 
sailor  who  does  not  work  with  tenfold  zeal  and 
fidelity  in  rigging  the  ship  that  he  has  a  share 
in,  and  which  is  to  bear  himself  and  his  dear 
ones  over  the  seas?  And  this  great  house  of 
humanity,  to  feel  that  it  is  to  be  ours  to  live  in 
through  all  ages ;  and  this  great  world-ship,  to 
know  that  it  is  ours  to  sail  in  over  all  the  seas 
of  time  and  into  celestial  ports, — is  there  any- 
thing which  can  so  make  us  forget  the  bruises 
and  stains  and  drudgery  of  their  building,  and 
fill  us  with  enthusiasm  and  fidelity  to  make  it 
good? 

It  is  a  principle  which  at  last  is  to  solve  the 
problem  of  work  in  all  its  minor  fields.     The 


322      THE  ROMANCE  OF  EVOLUTION 

wage  system,  the  idea  of  the  work  by  one  man 
and  of  its  ownership  by  another,  is  false  to  the 
order  of  nature  and  false  to  all  sound  phi- 
losophy. Cooperation,  every  man  working  on 
his  own  material  and  sharing  directly  in  the 
proceeds  of  his  work,  that  is  the  position  of 
labor  under  evolution ;  and  that  is  the  position 
to  which  sooner  or  later  it  is  bound  everywhere 
to  come;  that  the  one  in  which  how  many  of 
its  difficulties,  so  perplexing  to-day,  will  of 
themselves  disappear. 

And  finally,  notice  how  harmoniously  this 
view  of  work  blends  with  that  of  prayer. 
The  root  of  all  labor  is  in  want,  desire,  the 
same  thing  that  is  the  root  of  all  prayer;  the 
answer  of  all  prayer  is  to  be  found  through 
labor  and  found  in  him  who  is  the  animating 
presence  of  all  nature  and  all  life.  The  larger 
the  desire  is,  that  is,  the  more  earnest  the 
prayer ;  and  the  closer  we  come  into  communion 
with  him  and  into  conformity  with  his  laws, 
which  is  science,  the  larger  and  the  more  cer- 
tain will  be  the  result  of  labor, — that  is  the  an- 
swer to  prayer.  And  as  the  two  have  come 
down  together  so  far  from  the  mighty  past 
and  are  twin  instincts  now  in  our  human  na- 
ture, who  shall  say  it  is  not  the  teaching  of  the 
latest  philosophy  as  well  as  of  the  oldest  re- 
ligion   that    they    should    be    used    together, 


WORK  UNDER  EVOLUTION       323 

prayer  and  work,  as  the  twin  forces,  equally 
needed  and  equally  divine,  with  which  to  win 
the  good  we  need  to-day  and  reach  the  heaven 
of  our  vast  to-morrow? 

"The  doom  which  to  the  guilty  pair 
Without  the  walls  of  Eden  came, 
Transforming  sinless  ease  to  care 
And  rugged  toil,  no  more  shall  bear 
The  burden  of  old  crime,  or  mark  of  primal  shame: 

A  blessing  now,  a  curse  no  more, 
Since  he  whose  name  we  breathe  with  awe 
The  coarse  mechanic  vesture  wore, — 
A  poor  man  toiling  with  the  poor, 
In  labor,  as  in  prayer,  fulfilling  the  same  law." 


